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Still Talking

November 21, 2016

By Susan Barr-Toman

A few months after my husband died, Patti Smith was coming to the Philadelphia Library to talk about her second memoir M Train, a collection of essays. I called Missy right away. Patti was our thing. I was actually excited about something. We had to go together. Missy had given me Just Kids a few years ago. I’d never been a follower of Patti’s music, but I loved her memoir about a lifelong friendship founded on love and art. The two of us had a mini-pilgrimage to NYC. We’d traveled to the Hotel Chelsea, which unfortunately was under renovations at the time, and drank a cocktail next door at the El Quijote, where Patti had hung out with Janis Joplin.

The library would be my first outing since Pete died. At this point, everything was hard—eating, shopping, watching TV, making phone calls, getting out of bed. I needed to look forward to something that didn’t require much of me. But even with this event that required nothing of me, I needed someone to be with me in public, among strangers. The day before the event, Missy said she couldn’t make it.

When my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer, people—those who’d experienced the death of a close loved one and the therapist I’d started seeing—warned me that death would change my relationships. Those who I expected to be there for me might not be. Others, unexpected, would be. Death affects people profoundly. Some people can’t be around it for an array of reasons. They’re afraid or they’ve just been through it themselves. And it turned out to be true. People I barely knew showed up and people I thought would be my core support did not.

Missy was one of those people. I’d imagined when Pete died that she’d practically move in with me and the kids. Instead, a few months before he died, she abruptly moved to D.C. for a new job. Of course, she hadn’t expected that she’d move in with me, and over the last few years, she’d taken care of her parents until they both passed on. She needed a new start; she’d had enough of death.

Without her, I didn’t want to go to the event. I was feeling a little devastated. But years ago, I had renounced the Catholic guilt trip. I would not make her feel bad in the hope that she would find a way to come. I said nothing. Continue Reading…

Adoption, Guest Posts

There Is Nothing Wrong With Broken

October 17, 2016

By Brook Biggs

It is dark, the world has gone to sleep. Midnight passed and the dawn is still several hours away. In her crib, a little girl sleeps soundly. Who knows what dreams flicker through her mind’s eye; her thin eyelids quiver rapidly in sleep. All throughout the tiny house, the noises that create day have been silenced to paint night. A soft tread is heard in the hall just outside the sleeping child’s room. The door opens silently, a mere whisper against the old carpet on the floor. A woman enters, the weight and exhaustion of multiple jobs pull at her shoulders. She creeps towards the crib, towards the child she has not seen since the night before, and when her eyes find the outline of her child through the darkness, a mixture of grief and happiness collide in her eyes. This is her baby, her youngest, her daughter whom she loves but cannot keep. This is the child she will soon give away.

Reaching into the crib, unable to stop herself, the mother carefully scoops the child up into her arms. The little girl stirs but continues to sleep, resting her head in the nook of her mother’s neck, cradled into the arms created for comfort. Using her feet to find her way, the mother shuffles forward until she finds what she is looking for. The rocking chair is old but it is sturdy and it rocked the mother’s first child. Now it will rock this second child, the motion undulating a rhythm that defies the turmoil in the woman’s heart. She has gone back and forth on this. She has berated her mind, her absent spouse, her lot in life and still, the moment comes back, always, to the day she will walk away from her child. The sway of the chair, the breath of her sleeping child on her neck, the tears running down her cheeks, and the guilt tearing holes in her heart will not let her forget the despair of choice. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Fiction, Fiction Fridays

Song Looking for a Tune

January 8, 2021

By Travis Stephens

“What’s the matter?’ she asked for the third time in as many nights.

Tonight he was ready to say “nothing,” knowing it would sound half hearted. Low down half hearted, a song would say. Roman rolled those words around in his mind, probed them with his tongue. Can’t make it rhyme, can’t make it carry.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” Susan said. “You’re in one of your moods.” They had moved into this place two years ago, glad for a house close to the city park. Now Susan could walk out with the dog and do a clockwise loop on the walking path. There were a lot of dogs in the neighborhood and Susan waked with a tight knot of Labs, spaniels and standard poodles. Roman’s dog, an otherwise proud Walker hound, had taken to whining and sometimes peeing in anticipation of the morning walk. Roman felt embarrassed for the dog.

That dog had been the impetus and star of his second best song, the one picked up by that handsome Nashville singer married to the Australian actress. Not that the singer needed a hit, but got one anyway. He put a little Oklahoma onto the song when Roman had wrote it with a Kentucky state of mind. A little moonshine and banjo around a hound who left him with his estranged wife. Nashville had run a fucking dobro over the best finger picking Roman ever tried. The royalty checks helped ease the pain, but goddamnit anyway.

His first hit, the song he was known for, was told through the eyes of a little boy whose father drove a truck “steering big wheels of sadness” for days at a time. A tear jerker in the best country tradition, with mandatory slide guitar wail. It ended with an uplifting final message.

“Where did that come from?” Susan asked, when he had played it for her.

“I dunno. Just did.”

“I don’t see how. Your Daddy teaches economics at Saginaw Valley.”

“It’s not about me, Sue.”

“It’s weird.”

Roman had been teaching composition at the two-year university and sending free verse poems out to literary magazines. He had shared the song with Debbie Garnet, a folk singer he had grown up with. Dated, briefly, too. Debbie knew someone who knew someone and when the publication contract arrived in the mail Roman thought it for one of his poems. The call from Jackie followed shortly after.

“Hey, bub,” Jackie said in her whiskey and Diet Coke voice, “you probably need a better agent. I got you covered right here.”

“I don’t have an agent?”

“You just book shows on your own? Oh, honey child, time to move out of your parents’ garage.”

“I don’t do shows. I’m not part of a band. I work teaching English and composition full time.”

“You’re just a Kris Kristofferson, ain’t you?”

“More like a John Moreland.”

“I don’t even know who that is.”

On Jackie’s advice he had rented a small studio and reduced his teaching to part-time. He attended a songwriter’s workshop in Nashville, which Roman found to be exactly like any other writing workshop, full of snark and self congratulation. Jackie took him on a round of the smaller recording companies.

“Let me do the talking,” she said.

Roman paged through the press releases she was passing around.

“Wait, I’m not from Texas.”

“Hush. Everybody is from Texas. Just talk slower when anybody asks you something.”

“I’m not a trucker, either.”

“Don’t you worry about it. Nobody reads these things anyway.”

Afterward he was glad to go home. Nashville seemed enamored with slight young singers with oversized guitars. These singers, usually attractive blond women, were guarded by a coterie of executives and makeup artists. Roman heard his songs when they emerged from a radio and sometimes struggled to recognize his writing. It was why they lived across the line, in the corner of Kentucky that abutted Arkansas. “Whooee,”Jackie, said, “why you want to live over in that cracker barrel?”

“I just like it, Jackie. We can afford a nice house there. Besides, it’s only a few hours away.”

“If you say so.”

Today Roman had taught class from eight to eight-fifty and had spent the rest of the day in his studio. The painter who had the adjoining studio had been spraying fixer on a series of abstract landscapes so Roman was forced to open his windows. Eventually he moved a stool onto the tiny galvanized steel fire escape and sat out there. It overlooked a lot of gravel, grass and the bones of a burnt out garage. As Roman watched a cat slunk along the cinder block wall. It moved with a sneaky furtiveness that spoke of having done some terrible wrong.

Roman strummed the guitar and mouthed a series of phrases that contained “cat”, “heartbreak”, and “night” which eventually tuned into a few good lines about tomcatting into the morning light. Not bad.

But that was it. No focus. A few words surrounded by daydream. These were full of jingles and carried by cliché. He was strumming when he heard movement behind him.

Stuart was a self taught painter who, Roman suspected, lived illegally in his studio. That couch looked too slept in. It wasn’t like Stuart had a string of models he bed. The artist was a pear shaped man with a mean set of eyes. He’d stepped into Roman’s open door and was wearing a full face shield. Roman saw him peel it off.

“Must be nice,” Stuart said.

“What?”

“To work with nothing. No paints or canvas. Man, I got thousands of dollars tied up in oil paints and gesso. You can just sit with a guitar.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is.” Susan had framed one of his songs and it hung on the wall. Stuart tossed his thumb at it. “What is that, two chords?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“You’d think all country songs would already been done. All the possibilities run through. We have been painting for hundreds of years. Da Vinci. Michelangelo. Rembrandt. You could go back to the cave painters. Thousands of painters. It’s art that never ends.”

“Listen” Roman said, “How much longer you going to be spraying over there? You about give me a headache.”

“I just did the first coat,” Stuart said. “Two more coats to go.”

Roman fled to his car. Tossed the guitar in the back and drove the opposite direction of home. He wasn’t hungry. Before he went two miles he saw a ROAD WORK AHEAD, followed by WAIT FOR FLAGGER. He drove slowly past yellow behemoths grubbing in the dirt. Roman stopped when a flagger in a safety vest stepped in front of him. She held her palm toward him like she could fend off a songwriter in a half ton of steel.

She stood in the road a yard ahead of his radiator with a flag held lazily horizontal. The flagger wore scuffed work boots and jeans, a gray t-shirt. Her hair tried to lift the hardhat. County tomboy. Roman tried to imagine what someone like that would say when she came home after a day of standing on a road shoulder. How was your day? Exciting. Today I saw a red sports car. Kids on a bus waved to me. How was my day? Like any day just outside the grave.

Were there any songs about flaggers? He couldn’t think of one. Most country songs glorified the manly pursuits—ranching, trucking, building stuff or knocking it down. Roman tapped on the wheel, playing with a loose string of words that might be coaxed into a rhyme. Flag, nag, brag. Wave, crave and save. Maybe wave the flag and tie it to the US flag. Checkered flag.

Darlene, he decided. Dar—leen. Like darling. She lived in a trailer—no, she lived on a little place just big enough for a horse. Dreamed of carrying the flag on horseback like she used to do at the rodeo, flag over her shoulder, proud and tall with a Stetson instead of a hardhat, a pearl buttoned shirt with those western yokes. Big smile for the crowd. let’s give her a hand, folks, Miss Darlene of Abilene….

“Hey.” The flagger was at his driver’s side window. She was not smiling. She placed her hands on her hips. “What’s the matter with you? When I lower the flag it means you can go. Okay?” He heard her say “Dumbass” just under her breath.

Roman stepped on the gas a bit too hard. Spat gravel at the car behind him and toward the flagger. Damn. So long Darlene. So long. Nobody sings about flaggers and now he knew why.

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. An alumni of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, recent credits include: 2River, Sheila-Na-Gig, Hole in the Head Review, GRIFFEL, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Recommended Reading:

Anti-racist resources, because silence is not an option

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Click here for all things Jen

Guest Posts

Viva La Reev. Guest Post by Author Jamie Reidy.

June 21, 2012

Today’s guest post seemed fitting since I will be in Paris soon. It is written by Jamie Reidy, whose new book “A Walk’s As Good As A Hit: Advice/Threats from My Old Man” just came out. After you read this post I know you will want to buy this collection of funny and poignant essays. I just did. Enjoy the following sweet and tender post and click here to order Jamie’s fantastic book.

VIVA LA REEV!

I was supposed to get back from France today. Unfortunately, my client’s situation changed. But that’s a risk I run as an international dog sitter.

I haven’t been in the business long; in fact, this was going to be my first gig. In May, a friend of my father’s emailed to congratulate me on my book and we struck up a regular correspondence over the next few weeks. (It’s amazing how much quicker I get back to people who tell me how great I am.) In mid-June, Frank forwarded me an email from his stepdaughter who lives in France.

Susan had emailed everyone she knows, asking if anyone wanted a free apartment for a few weeks in downtown Toulouse, an 18^th century town near the Pyrenees. The catch? The occupier had to dog sit for River, her 13-year old black lab, whose age prevented him from accompanying Susan on a two-week hiking trip in the aforementioned mountains.

“Hey, Mr. Author,” Frank wrote. “Why don’t you go bunker down in France for two weeks and knock out your screenplay? All you’d have to do is walk the dog a couple of times a day and drink French wine at night.” Oh, sure, I’ll just drop everything and jet over to France for two weeks. Like that’s going to happen. But then, as I sat un-showered in my boxers at 3pm on a school day, I began to reconsider.

Why wouldn’t I do it?

In my newfound role as fulltime writer, I quickly discovered that I have the attention span of a crow stuck in a room filled with disco balls. TV, iPhone, “Hiya, Mr. Time Warner Cable Guy working next door” – distractions lurk in every direction. Burying myself in a city where I know no one and can speak to no one seemed like a brilliant way to get work done without addressing my lack of self-discipline. Oh yeah, and Toulouse is supposed to be a charming little city.

There were some good reasons for not going, starting with the fact that I had never heard of Toulouse, let alone yearned to visit. Logistical problems loomed, as it seemed I was not the only Californian trying to fly to Europe in August; exorbitant airfares would require me to cash in 100K cherished frequent flier miles (Jamie doesn’t do “coach” overseas). Oh, and then there was the whole, “Who goes to France to dog sit?” thing.

Which is what sealed the deal. Nobody flies to France – or any other place, for that matter – to watch a dog he’s never even met. This kind of shit doesn’t happen to normal people. So I agreed to become a dog sitter.

“Of course you are,” my old roommate Steve replied when hearing of my trip. Because that’s how I roll, mes amis. “Do you speak any French?”

Ah, zee million dollair question (question)! At my parents’ insistence, I took French in 7^th and 8^th grade – in 1982 Mr. and Mrs. Reidy didn’t foresee Spanish becoming a growth language in America – and I still recall more words en Francais than I do in German, which I “studied” for three semesters in college. But, to answer the question, non, je ne parle pas Francais. So, I ran out and bought a crash course on CD.

As I listened, many language-related issues popped into my tete. What if River, the dog I’d be sitting, had forgotten how to speak English? He might prefer being called, “Reev-air.” Maybe I could get away with giving him commands in French-accented English, a la “seet.” Assuming River spoke only French and I still didn’t, would he comprendre my asking, “Do you want to go outside?” in that crazy, baby talk way American dogs seem to prefer?

I looked forward to the challenge of trying to teach him un nouveau artifice in our mere two weeks together. My mind raced with the possibilities of using River as a foreign chick magnet: “Oui, il est mon chien.” (Note to self: learn how to say, “Would you like to see where he sleeps?”)

I started to get pretty excited about the trip. I learned from a helpful French waiter at an LA restaurant that I’d be visiting Tuh-looze, not Tuh-loose, as I had been telling people. Checking it out online, I noticed that the city looks very cobblestoney, and I imagined The Reev – as I had nicknamed him – and I strolling its 300-year old streets in our matching berets. It was going to be one heck of a working vacation.

And then I got the email: River died.

The poor old guy conked out three weeks before I was due to arrive. Susan said he went quickly, and mentioned that just a few days beforehand he had joyously fished a baguette out of a lake and then buried it on shore. This image broke my heart; ah, the times we would have had!

But my sadness gave way to an overwhelming sense of relief. What would I have done if River had died on my watch? Mon Dieu! I doubt my English-French dictionary contains help for finding a veterinarian or the phrase for, “I did not kill the dog.” I cannot even imagine what I would have said to Susan upon her return, what words of solace I could have provided.

In her email, Susan said she hoped I’d still take advantage of the free apartment, since she was going ahead with the two-week hike. For me, though, River’s death robbed my trip of its spirit. Instead of living the unlikely adventure of writing a screenplay while dog sitting in an 18^th century town in the south of France, I would have been a linguistically challenged, solo tourist aimlessly shuffling through a place I had no desire to visit in the first place. So, I declined her kind offer.

And on Saturday night – what would have been the last night of my trip to Toulouse – I raised a glass of champagne and toasted River. Dying in the south of France while on a long vacation with the girl you love – tres bien, mon frere.

Jamie Reidy is a University of Notre Dame graduate and a former U.S. Army officer. His first book, “Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman” served as the inspiration for the movie “Love and Other Drugs.” Jake Gyllenhaal played a character named “Jamie” in it. Seriously. Jamie’s second book, “Bachelor 101: Cooking + Cleaning = Closing” is a cookbook/lifestyle guide for clueless single dudes just like him. He lives in Manhattan Beach, CA where he also writes screenplays. And takes Jen Pastiloff’s yoga classes. Seriously.

Jennifer Pastiloff is a writer living on an airplane and the founder of The Manifest-Station. She’s leading a Retreat in Costa Rica at the end of March and 4 day retreat over Labor Day in Ojai, Calif. All retreats are a combo of yoga/writing for all levels. She and bestselling author Emily Rapp will be leading another writing retreat to Vermont in October. Check out her site jenniferpastiloff.com for all retreat listings and workshops to attend one in a city near you. Next up is NYC in March followed by Dallas, Seattle and London.

Guest Posts, Autism

Don’t Panic, I’m Only Autistic; or Welcome to Autism Acceptance Month

April 16, 2019

By Susanna Donato

Just over a year ago, on March 23, I was diagnosed with autism. By now, I’ve shared that information with many people in my life, including family, friends, and colleagues. Some of them, when I’ve explained, have said something along the lines of, “Oh! Yeah, you’re a little different, but I thought that was just a Susanna thing!”

Still, even though I don’t think “coming out” as autistic—sharing what’s essentially a medical diagnosis—is an obligation, I’m starting to feel a little lily-livered about posting resources and information and commenting on other people’s posts without sharing the reason I’m doing so or my perspective.

I’ve been reluctant to “go public” mainly because I don’t want people to judge me. When I told one friend, he took a step back and asked if I was OK.

I’m OK. I’m definitely OK. Autism isn’t contagious. It isn’t a deteriorating condition. And there are so many people like me. While the stereotype of autism may still be a boy with verbal and/or intellectual challenges—and don’t get me wrong, those individuals absolutely are present and deserve the same rights as anyone!—half or more have IQs that are average to above average, sometimes way above average. (Though non-speaking doesn’t mean non-communicative.) Lots of us are women, and a bunch are nonbinary or identify in other ways. And all of us, God willing, grow up and become adults. Continue Reading…

death, Grief, Guest Posts, healing

Reflections on a Friend’s Suicide.

June 18, 2014

Reflections on a Friend’s Suicide by Susan Lerner

Fifteen years ago, as a newcomer to Indianapolis, I packed my tots into the minivan and drove to a playgroup, desperate to meet other moms. Among the mothers was a stay-at-home dad. Toddlers wobbled across the floor, babies gummed Cheerios, and the dad and I chatted. We lived in the same neighborhood. Over the course of the next few months we began to bump into each other outside the confines of the playgroup—at the neighborhood playground, at Little Gym birthday parties. The dad, his wife, and son, came to kiddie get-togethers in my basement. They came for dinner. The father let me read a screenplay he wrote. When the time came to send our tikes to school—the neighbors chose public, while my husband and I picked private—our paths gradually diverged.

Last year my son, Sam, began his freshman year at the same high school our neighbor’s son attends. Sam joined the Quiz Bowl team. At that time my neighbor’s son, then a sophomore, had been on the team for a year, so my neighbor became my go-to person whenever I had a question about a Quiz Bowl event, which was often. The late afternoon competitions precluded most parents from attending, and sometimes the stay-at-home dad and I were the only ones in attendance. We settled into our molded plastic chairs, munched on the team’s snacks, and whispered to each other, trying to answer questions as we watched our kids compete.

Just before Thanksgiving, my friend killed himself.

I had no idea he was suffering is the thought that looped through my mind. It seemed true enough—we’d known each other a long time but weren’t close; it didn’t come as a surprise that he hadn’t confided in me. But how could I not have noticed he was dangerously depressed?

I had no idea he was suffering. At first I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, but before long it fell away and I saw the situation through a more honest lens: I did have an inkling that my friend was emotionally fragile; I just never allowed myself that thought. To admit that he was struggling would have made me uncomfortable, not because emotional distress was a scary unknown, but because I knew it well.

During my worst anxiety attacks I’ve faked calm. Tried to pass. Desperate to conceal my anxiety from others and myself, I worked hard to push it into a dark corner of my psyche. What I didn’t realize until after my neighbor’s death is that I kept a subtle distance from him because he reminded me of my secret. My reaction to him was a reflection of how I felt about myself. My friend was, for me, a mirror.

About a week before his suicide, I went to a yoga class where the teacher spoke about the concept of abiding. She read a book written by her childhood friend, psychiatrist Christine Montross. In “Falling Into the Fire,” Dr. Montross writes about extreme pathology. Her patients compulsively swallow household objects, subject themselves to serial cosmetic surgeries as a result of body dysmorphic disorder, are haunted by obsessive homicidal thoughts. The author examines these illnesses within the context of her patients’ narratives, seeing their symptoms as fallout from loss and trauma. At the end of each chapter Dr. Montross writes about her own life, illustrating the commonality between her patients’ experiences and her own. “Falling Into the Fire,” —part exploration of mental illness, part memoir, and part exegesis on the human condition—is a strikingly honest book written with compassion and extraordinary heart.

Montross explores the importance of abiding, “of being with patients as they suffer.” She writes that although she may not be able to provide her patients a quick cure, she can walk with them on their journeys and work with them to understand what’s causing their distress. In one section, Montross counsels a depressed woman whose child was killed in a car accident. In order to abide with this woman’s anguish, Montross sees that she, too, could lose her child through a circumstance over which she has no control. “I could lose my home, my financial security, my safety. I could lose my mind. Any of us could.”

Montross relays what a therapist once told her, that we all live beneath a veil of vulnerability, as if we and our loved ones will live forever. When catastrophe strikes, this veil dissolves and we are faced with the fact that we are all “perched on a precipice.” We like to think of those who suffer from mental illness as “other.” Montross’ stories illustrate that despite our different ways of coping with the pain and vulnerability of being human, we have the same needs: to be understood, to be loved.

I wish my shame about my anxiety hadn’t stopped me from reaching out to my friend. My heart breaks when I contemplate the magnitude of his anguish, so colossal that it drove him to leave his family, and this world, too soon.

Now that my friend is gone, all I can do is to try to find, from within this tragedy, meaning. His memory will be a reminder that what I—and others—go through, however painful, is not shameful. I now understand how important it is to offer an ear, to sit with someone’s suffering. My friend is gone, but his memory, for me, is a reminder to abide.

*This essay originally appeared in Word Riot Magazine.

Susan Lerner is a student in Butler University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Her work has appeared in Word Riot, Monkeybicycle, JMWW, Bluestem, and The Believer Logger. Susan lives in Indianapolis with her husband, three teenagers, and dog, Mischief. In her spare time she posts book reviews at https://booklerner.blogspot.com.

courtesy of Simplereminders.com. Click to connect with them and pre-order their book.

Jennifer Pastiloff, Beauty Hunter, is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Her work has been featured on The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Jezebel, Salon, among others. Jen’s leading one of her signature retreats to Ojai, Calif over Labor Day in Ojai, Calif and over New Years. Check out jenniferpastiloff.com for all retreat listings and workshops to attend one in a city near you. Next up: South Dakota, NYC, Dallas. She is also leading a Writing + The Body Retreat with Lidia Yuknavitch Jan 30-Feb 1 in Ojai (3 spots left.) She tweets/instagrams at @jenpastiloff.

Binders, Guest Posts, imagination

A Series of Imagined Exchanges With My New Financial Advisor

April 5, 2015

By Susan Harlan.

“As you’re falling asleep, I’m going to take over your brain.”

“Are financial advisors supposed to do that?

“Yes.”

“So what are you hoping to get out of this meeting?”

“Well, my car broke down, so I have to get a new car.”

“And you’d like to discuss options.”

“Yes. I’d like to figure out what I should spend and come up with a budget for the future. But mostly I’m just depressed because I really loved my car. I attached all sorts of significance about where I am in my life to that that car.”

“I see.”

“Her name was Beryl.”

“You named your car Beryl?”

“Yes. Because she was an old lady. She needed an old lady name.”

“Well, we’ll do our best to come up with a plan.”

“I’ll probably still be sad.”

“Probably.”

“So where do you feel that you are in your life?”

“Could we maybe start with some smaller questions?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve entered all of your information into this budget spreadsheet.”

“Thank you.”

“We can go through it all. Bills, discretionary expenses, what-not.”

“So you can just plug in the numbers and it adds it all up for you?”

“Yes. That’s the idea.”

“That’s very cool.”

“I think so.”

“And if you change a number, it adds it all up again?”

“So you haven’t ever used Excel?”

“I think there was this time that I was working on this thing…well, no.”

“Let’s look at discretionary spending that can be cut, and then we’ll turn to your monthly bills.”

“Are you going to judge me?”

“No.”

“You may regret saying that.”

“So what is this eBay expense, for example?”

“That was for a couple of afghans.”

“How many?”

“It might have been as many as four. All told.”

“You could probably do with fewer afghans.”

“They were all different colors.”

“Still.”

“Yes, I probably could.”

“And this eBay charge?”

“Vintage cocktail glasses.”

“I see.”

“They were etched.”

“Right.”

“And a yarn painting.”

“What’s a yarn painting?”

“Well, it’s just really a painting, but you know – made from yarn.”

“Right. These could probably be cut. I see a certain amount of money going towards household expenses.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“Are there other purchases along these lines we can talk about?”

“Well, that one is for a garden gnome named Baudelaire, and that is for a concrete deer and duck.”

“I don’t necessarily need to know about the exact objects – just the category.”

“The gnome is French.”

“So ‘Housewares’?”

“Sort of. But he lives on the porch.”

“These are the kinds of purchases you’ll want to be careful about in the future.”

“Yes. I get tempted to buy things when I’m bored.”

“Are you bored a lot?”

“That’s a difficult question to answer.”

“We can come back to it.”

“Do we need to factor a gym membership into the budget?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“How much does your dog cost you per month?”

“About $100.”

“So I’m putting that in.”

“Does that make her a very expensive dog?”

“She’s fine.”

“Even a budget dog?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, moving into other recreational expenses. Here, we have Netflix. That’s discretionary.”

“Only if you want me to die the death of the wretched.”

“So Netflix stays.”

“Let’s take a look at your monthly food expenses. You may not realize this, but you’re spending a lot on groceries.”

“I can imagine that to be true. I eat a lot.”

“I’m sure we can find a way to make some cuts. What’s this bill for?”

“Vermouth.”

“This whole bill is for vermouth?”

“Well, yes. Sweet vermouth.”

“Was it for entertaining? I can put it under ‘Entertaining.’”

“Sort of. I just found a shop that has some very nice vermouths.”

“What are they for?”

“Manhattans.”

“We may want to cut back on the Manhattans.”

“That’s very upsetting, but I get it.”

“I see a number of charges per week for $7.36. What is this?”

“Five Guys.”

“The hamburger place?”

“Yes.”

“If we add these up, you have quite a lot of them every month.”

“Hmm. How many are we talking?”

“I’d really rather not say.”

“I understand. I’ll try to eat more sandwiches.”

“Please do.”

“So we’ve been talking a lot about patterns in the past. Let’s turn to your long-term financial goals.”

“Sounds good.”

“How do you see the next couple of years? What would you like to be able to do?”

“Well, I want to but a ramshackle, old farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley and fix it up.”

“Farmhouses are nice.”

“Preferably something with a wood-burning stove and peeling wallpaper. Maybe some nice tile.”

“Anything else?”

“I’d also like to fix up a vintage Airstream trailer and then drive it around the country with my dog.”

“This are noble goals, but maybe we could think more in terms of paying off educational debt.”

“Oh, right. I thought you meant, you know, home improvement goals.”

“We can work out a plan for how much money you should put towards your debt, and that will help you to reach these goals. Eventually.”

“Okay.”

“Any other long-term goals?”

“Well, it’s not really related to paying off debt.”

“Okay.”

“I’d like to move back to New York City and be able to go out to lunch everyday.”

“Everyday?”

“Yes, like how all the expat writers went out to lunch everyday in Paris and ate lobster and drank white wine and talked about books. I’d like to have that life.”

“That does sound nice.”

“But without the wars and the misogyny.”

“Naturally.”

Susan Harlan is an English professor at Wake Forest University, and her work has appeared in venues such as The Guardian, The Toast, The Awl, The Morning News, Jezebel, Roads & Kingdoms, and Public Books.

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Guest Posts, parenting, parents

Driving With Mom

August 15, 2021

by Susan Cohen

The house is bathed in black. There are no lights to guide me. I move slowly, step by step on the icy walkway covered with snow, clinging to the iron railing. When I reach the landing, I stamp the snow off my boots and ring the doorbell.

I hear the quiet, gentle, familiar sound of the chimes echoing through the hall and then wait patiently for the lights to flip on and to hear the sounds of footsteps on the carpet. But minutes later, the house is still dark.

The car is sitting in the driveway covered with a layer of snow, and I don’t see any fresh footprints along the walkway. My mother never goes to bed before the 9:00 movie. My heart beats faster, remembering how last winter she was anchored like in her chair, robotically bringing a cigarette to her lips, one after the other.

Reaching into the ceramic pot through a clump of gray snow, I feel the sharp edge of the key and then try to push the front door open with a firm shove. It resists opening as if it’s frozen shut, and I need to muster up all my strength until it finally gives in. I wonder when the door was opened last.

“Anybody Home? Mom?”

The electric radiator is clicking away, struggling to heat the air through a film of dust. I fight the urge to sneeze.

I am beginning to regret my decision to hitchhike home to retrieve the backdrop for “Midsummer’s Night Dream.” I came without warning because I didn’t want my mother to get excited, make a fuss, and start shopping and cooking, but I forgot after one year at college that she had a habit of folding inside herself during the cold dark days of winter.

I slide open the kitchen door, and I see my mother surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke. She doesn’t jump up, shout my name in surprise and wrap me in her arms. Instead, she is staring at the upper left-hand corner where the kitchen cabinet meets the ceiling. Deep in concentration, her eyebrows meet in the middle of her forehead, and her eyelashes flutter as if she is dreaming sitting upright in her chair.

The plan was to take her to a restaurant for dinner and then borrow her car to drive to the summer cottage where the backdrop is stuffed in a trunk in her bedroom. But I can’t leave her this way. I decide to take her with me. Perhaps the memories of sticky hazy afternoons dangling her feet into the lake from the dock will reignite and warm her spirit.

After I rinse and load dishes in the dishwasher and scrub away fried egg glued onto a frying pan, I sit opposite her at the kitchen table. I push aside a burning cigarette that’s dangerously close to an open newspaper.

She startles when I gently touch her hand.

“You want to drive with me to the summer cottage?”

Her gaze moves down from the ceiling and but she doesn’t look at me. It’s more like she sees through me.

“It would be nice to get out of the house, don’t you think?”

I pat her hand gently. She nods, gets up from her chair, and slowly heads towards the coat closet. This is a good sign.

I watch her quietly as she slips on the same ankle-length mink coat she has been wearing for over thirty years. Miraculously preserved, it’s still soft and shiny, and I feel an impulse to pet it, just like I did when I was a child.

Thrusting her hands into the deep pockets of her coat, she pulls out a red wool hat with a pom-pom and a brightly striped scarf that I wore when I was in junior high. If she was pushing a shopping cart, she could be mistaken for a homeless person. On a good day, I could tell her I am calling the fashion police, and she would laugh.

In the car, we sit on the icy cold seats and put on our seat belts. I crank the heater all the way up. A chill from the night air seeps in as my Mom opens her window a small crack and lights up a cigarette.

She blinks as she exhales as if the smoke is stinging her eyes. I am waiting for her to ask about my studies or ask if I am seeing someone. As much as I long to hear her voice, I’m not in a mood to answer either question. All I hear is the purr of the fan.

Suddenly she giggles. I don’t know why she’s laughing. It’s silly to visit a summer home in the dead of winter, but I wouldn’t call it funny. My grip grows stronger on the wheel until my knuckles turn white as I drive down the ramp and merge into the middle lane of the highway.

“Hope you’re in shape. We have to hike through the snow to our back door.”

She’s doesn’t turn to face me but keeps her gaze straight ahead at twelve o’clock.

“Have you been to the summer cottage in the winter before?”

I am afraid she has been hypnotized by watching the white lines fly by, one after the other, and is now even further away from me. Perhaps I won’t be able to coax her out of the car, and I begin to fear we will be doomed to driving forever. I fiddle with the radio until I find a light rock station. Putting my hands firmly on the wheel, I keep the speed at a steady 65 miles per hour.

Then I hear Carole King’s voice. I see myself, thirteen years old sitting on my twin bed looking at my poster of a fluffy white baby seal taped on my wall, and I begin to sing,

“It’s too late, baby, now it’s too late.”

“What does this mean?”

She’s speaking! Her voice is sweet and soft, like a bashful child. But then I am confused, and I don’t know how to answer. There are several different possibilities. She might want to know why we are driving to the summer cottage or maybe the significance of life itself.

“Are you asking what the song means?”

She nods her head up and down. Something as simple as being heard feels magical. My shoulders soften.

“A woman fell out of love and wants to end her relationship.”

“Yes, but what does it mean?”

“I guess there comes a point in a relationship where you just can’t try anymore.”

Then my mother exhales smoke with a loud sigh. She seems satisfied with my answer for now.

I want to ask her what “it’s too late” means to her. But I am afraid her answer will bring memories that will force her back inside her shell. I have memories of my own. Like the night my father came home late after making full professor; purple balloons strung along the ceiling, a bottle of champagne sitting in a sea of melted ice, cheese dreams with a hard crust from turning cold. At midnight my mother jumped, thinking she heard his footsteps on the landing was the sound of a tree branch blowing in the wind, rubbing against the windowpane.

A sign announces a familiar exit up ahead, and I panic because I can’t remember if I’m supposed to take it. I try to bring back the warmth from the hot sun beating on the roof, the sound of crickets through the open window to remember if this is the exit l took last summer. Meanwhile, the exit is coming closer. I need to decide.

I feel a sharp tug on the steering wheel and the car veers sharply to the right. Terrified, trying to regain control, I grab the wheel and pull to the left. The car begins to skid. It spins into a circle and then falls gently against a snowbank with a muffled crunch.

I turn towards my mother, looking straight at me for the first time, and I let her have it.

“What were you thinking? You could have killed us! If you reach for the wheel again, I am going to put you in the back seat. Do you want to sit there all by yourself?”

My mother is squished against the car door, looking small and helpless, but now she is looking me straight in the eye as she tries to defend herself, “The exit was coming closer, and you were listening to the radio and not paying attention..”

“Why can’t you speak to me instead of grabbing the wheel? Why do you have to act crazy and scare the hell out of me like this?”

This is a familiar pattern. The withdrawal, a blowup, and then the gentle trickle of confessions and regrets. A slow slide to something that resembles normalcy where you say what you feel, and it’s possible to breathe love in and out.

We drive in silence for a few minutes.

“Sorry I yelled at you. But you could have killed us.”

“Why are we going to the summer cottage, anyway?” Her voice is stronger, challenging me. Only now she realizes how strange it is to go to a summer cottage in the dead of winter.

“I want to get the backdrop for our production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“Ah, yes, it’s stuffed in the antique trunk in my bedroom.”

I sigh and take a deep breath. Although the spell is broken, there are more challenges ahead. I haven’t thought this through. The snow might be so deep or icy that it is impossible to hike to the back door. I didn’t even think to bring a shovel. The door could be frozen shut. Even if I succeed in prying it open, it would still take a miracle to hop through all the lawn furniture stored in the hallway, find that trunk, pry it open, and drag out that backdrop. Even if I can set it free and reclaim it, it might be stained by mildew or, even worse, became a nest for baby mice or squirrels.

As we approach the lake, there are fewer and fewer street lights, just an occasional spot of yellow between long dark corridors. When we reach the road closest to our house, there is a windy ribbon of snow leading to our back door. The snow has a slight crust on it, like cake icing.

Before I can take the key out of the ignition, my mother opens the passenger door, and a blast of cold air comes into the car.

She places her right boot on the snow, and she manages to stand momentarily when suddenly the layer of ice beneath her foot gives way with a loud crunch. With one foot six inches below the other, she begins to lose her balance but manages to steady herself with her two hands extended out on either side. Images flash in my head of her twisting her ankle, me trying to lift her back into the car, looking for an emergency room back home late at night. But she’s filled with energy and isn’t discouraged in the least bit.

She laughs, “I ate too many cookies. I am just an old fatty.”

“Mom, it’s not you. The mink coat weighs a ton.”

I walk around the car and have us swap coats so that she can wear my light down jacket to reduce her weight. As I slip on my mother’s mink coat, there is the faint smell of sweat mixed with a hint of Channel Number 5 that I give her every year for Christmas.

“I will hug you from behind to help you keep your balance. One, two, three march!”

We sink just a little bit. Thankfully the edges of the ice aren’t sharp.

I start chanting a song we sang together when we hiked through the woods in the summer years ago.

Left, left, I had a wife, but she left. My wife left me with 36 children, and there is no gingerbread left.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, our feet keep pace with the beat. The snowdrifts form a peak reaching up to the roof.

“Oh my Lord, where is the door? Mom, I need to set myself free so I clear the snow.”

I release my arms from around my mother’s waist to walk around her from the left. At first, the ice supports my weight, but then after just a few seconds, my foot crashes through. I grab onto my mother for support. We stagger and fell to the ground giggling, making two small craters where we lay side by side, our backs on the snow, our eyes to the sky. The snow isn’t wet but instead squishes under our bodies like a soft cushion. There is a grounding feeling of being flush with the earth.

I look up to see a long band of stars packed so close together they form a swirl across the sky. I feel like I am a child again at the Planetarium, seeing a black field filled with lights. There is awe in seeing the width and breadth of forever.

“Mom, look at the arm of the Milky Way. It’s beautiful.”

“Did you know that there is a whole generation of children that have never seen the big dipper? New laws are forcing businesses to shut off their lights so people can see the night sky.”

Ah, here is the mother I love, quoting US News and World Report, a river of words traveling through topics all over the world and through time. There is that opening of the chest, the spark to the brain, the rapid exchange of thoughts and ideas, insightful, thoughtful, and rational.

“Mom, we could talk all night. But if we don’t move, we’ll freeze to death. How can I even find the door through all this snow?”

My mother chuckles and then laughs.

“No need.”

“Mom, why are you laughing? You’re scaring me with this laughter of yours.”

“The backdrop is back home in the attic.”

“What?”

“I brought it back last summer when we closed the cottage. I thought you might need it for college.”

“And you just remembered now?”

I reach over and place my gloved hands on my mother’s neck as if I want to strangle her. We wrestle in the snow like we are two little kids.

We follow our footsteps back to the car. This time separately, my mother leads, and I walk behind her, putting my feet in the same impressions in the snow. After we settle in the car and fire up the heat, I hear about my cousin’s wedding and my uncle’s retirement. After half an hour, she snores lightly.

I open the door to my home that this time surrenders to my touch easily, tuck in my mother, and place a kiss on her cheek.

Lying on my childhood bed staring at the wallpaper with vines running up and down the walls, I think about the patterns of my shared life with my mother; the laughter, silence, withdrawal, absence, hospitalizations, medications, and her homecoming to start the cycle again. There are no facts but only theories about what triggers her slow disappearance; a bad gene, chemical imbalance, poor nutrition, failed marriage, empty nest, boredom, loneliness. Perhaps it’s all of these things, or maybe it’s something simpler. Her spirit is searching for the calm that comes from having a witness, a caring soul to exchange her thoughts and feelings, the positive energy that comes from breathing love in and out.

Susan Cohen has had her work appear in Cyclamens and Swords, All Things Girl, Adanna Literary Review, Six Hens, and Chaleur Magazine and has been shortlisted twice for Glimmer Train short story awards. She is also the co-founder of a PR firm located North of Tel Aviv.

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Leigh Stein is amazing, no really she is. Leigh was cofounder and executive director of Out of the Binders/BinderCon, a feminist literary nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the careers of women and gender variant writers. The Land of Enchantment was our first introduction to Leigh, and her memoir of a broken love and lost dreams placed this writer firmly on our radar. Leigh’s recent novel, Self Care, received rave (and starred) reviews and is a highbrow yet satirical look at influencer culture. This month, though, she released a book of poetry that is everything. What to Miss When: Poems is a look at the internet, the pandemic, and the life lived in between. Leigh is an amazing talent, pick up one of her books and let us know what you think!

Order the book from Amazon or Bookshop.org

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Anti-racist resources, because silence is not an option

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Guest Posts

Grave Digging.

March 10, 2014

By Susan Cohen.

While the rest of the world was making love (so it seems), I went grave-digging this Valentines Day. I kicked at the ground around some of my dead romances wondering if The One For Me was ever right in front of me and I just hadn’t recognized him. Maybe I’d been too picky. Had I discarded him carelessly like a candy wrapper in anticipation of the good stuff? I peeked into the beginnings and lingered a little in the middles but the ends, I concluded, always came because of three little words. No now, not those three.

At 19 a boyfriend took me to the movies for our first date. Wintertime in Chicago, and though the theatre had a parking garage and heated catwalk, he resourcefully found a spot 4 blocks away and held my hand as we navigated mounds of snow and ice. The ticket booth lady snuck me a pitying glance when he reached for his wallet and exclaimed, “Seven Dollars?! Geez!” 5 seconds passed as I considered buying my own way in, but by the 6th I’d decided That was it for Him.

He called constantly that next week, before stalking got it’s shameful reputation and was still known as pursuit, but his timing was bad and I’d always just left or not yet returned and then one day he appeared on the front porch holding a hand-written poem. It was an acrostic of my name where he stacked and rhymed all of my qualities that had him hooked. As he recited it I leaned against the railing and viewed him from a different angle. Poetic trumped miserly then, as frozen toes are a small sacrifice for a warm heart. So what if he was cautious about money? I told myself he might just be my perfect match considering how fast and free I am with my wallet. We’d balance each other. It could be good.

Then in the spring we went to my cousin’s wedding. Since they were young and she was pregnant they made it quiet and quick at the Fireman’s Dining Hall. No DJ, just a boom box. He watched me dance and I’d catch him across the small room, surveying the gift table. Our ending came swiftly on the drive home that night as he praised my cousin’s brilliance for having apparently made a profit on the event. “I mean did you see that stack of envelopes?” His verbal applause went on like that for miles but it became the background music because in my mind “seven dollars geez” had taken the main stage. I imagined for the ride a future spent calculating every special occasion, removing all of the joy from every single one. Then I subtracted him.

A few years forward I batted my eyelashes at shallowness and as if perfectly cast came the hot one. His aunt and uncle owned a cabin in Traverse City, Michigan and we went there for a weekend to ski. On the hills he offered little tips on things. Lots of them. How to clamp my boots, when to bend my knees, where to shift my weight. He chose a hat for me that he knew would keep me the warmest without breaking my speed. I kept to myself that I knew how to ski and had even taken some lessons because he seemed to like giving me tips almost as much as he liked looking at himself. I couldn’t blame him, I liked looking at him too. He was someone to look at and everywhere we went everybody else apparently agreed.

He came to my parents house that Christmas and I’m positive my Gram tipped her Harvey’s Bristol Creme in his direction. My mom flitted around room whispering to my relatives, “I think this could be the one”. During this period my father had started getting anxious about me and impatient for grandchildren. If I’m remembering right, this was the man he cornered that Christmas and tried to bribe with an all-expenses paid Hawaiian honeymoon. I stood too far from them to eavesdrop accurately, but swear I heard him say “Please” and “don’t worry, you’ll get used to her”.

The gift circle and all eyes were on us. He placed a square box in my lap. Too large for jewelry, too symmetrical for a sweater, maybe a vase for all the future flowers he’d be surprising me with?

I unwrapped an auto-drip coffee maker, a recent model with a hefty packet of unbleached paper filters, colorless and stiff. “Ohhhh” sang my mother while beside me he sat beaming like it was the Hope Diamond.

“Um…thanks” and then I braved “but I don’t drink coffee. Have you ever seen me drink coffee? I don’t like it”

“But I do”

And there they were, all three of them, the nails in his coffin. Later, I let him take me home to my apartment where he cleared a space on the counter and plugged it in proudly. Afterward, he got the appliance and plugged that in as well.

“Here” he said “let me show you how to use it”.

But he never did because I couldn’t learn how to stand in front of someone without being seen, as much as he had tried to teach me. So he took his coffee to-go.

At the tip of this triangle, like an upside-down heart, was the one who would have made it had our watches been in sync. Everything else between us was. Magic and mystery made it that way from the first time we met. We were co-workers, salespeople who along with a territory shared months and moments I’ll never forget. I’d think a thought and he’d say it out loud. An invisible rope stretched between and pulled us into each other. 2-hour lunches trading stories and secrets became our routine. We’d travel to our clients together and always we’d take the longest route back. When he was going out and I was staying in, he’d stop at my desk and say softly “Come with me” like a question, as a plea. Into early evening when the office echoed he’d ask if I was hungry and then he’d say it again. I loved those little words, trustworthy and faithful they came to me each day and often nights, with weekends as well.

Disaster loomed; mismanaged funds and dishonest dealings catapulted the company toward a rapid demise. He told me he was leaving before he had no other choice, he’d found something better that he would be a part of building up from the beginning. It was without structure or history and entailed a tremendous risk, a daring plunge into creating a thing without knowing for certain how much it might demand. He said them then. “Come with me” and I almost did, tiptoeing right up to the edge until fear pulled me back to a place that felt safe. I decided I’d wait, hang around for a bit and see what might happen, maybe something better was ahead.

And then he left.

So each partner from the past has three parts all their own; beginning, middle and end, and they’re all in the middle of everyone else’s. That’s enough to make life whole. If you’re paying attention, three words will tell you a lot about a person, maybe all you need to know. I’m relieved to discover that I didn’t miss something or someone, that everything belongs exactly where it is because it’s all a part of the unfinished story.

Susan Cohen is a writer who has disguised herself for 30+ years as a waitress, cab driver, ad salesperson and observer of the mundane and extraordinary. Passionate about writing, meditating and exploring each experience for the lessons and love within.

courage, Guest Posts

A Letter To My Son

August 25, 2015

By Susan Rahn

Dear Son,

You just turned 16.

It seems like I blinked and you went from a curious toddler to a handsome, bright young man with such a bright future within your grasp. I so excited for you and can’t wait to see what path you choose for yourself. I’m confident you’ll choose wisely.

There is so much I want to tell you but I know how much you hate ‘mushy’ letters. This will not be one of those. This includes important things to remember for when you choose a partner to share your life with.

You’re probably shaking your head at me because of how things didn’t work out with me and your Father. I may not seem like the best person to be doling out advice but I have a very unique perspective that I didn’t have before.

Obviously, you’ll want someone who loves and respects you. You’ll want someone that you can laugh with and share memories with. Everyone does. You’ll also want someone who drives you a little bit crazy with the particular way they do things. It’s OK. It will remind you of why you fell in love in the first place.

You’ll want someone who shares some of your interests. It’s OK if there are some differences. If you both liked all the same things life would be boring.

Now pay attention because this is important. This is something few are told and even less consider when choosing a partner…ready?

Be very, very certain that if your partner or you ever have a significant health issue that both of you will be committed to each other. That you’ll support each other emotionally because that’s so important. Neither of you can ‘check out’ emotionally because things get scary. Be sure that you’ll both dig your heels in and support one another. Don’t be so selfish that your feelings become more important than her’s regardless of who is ill. Continue Reading…

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