things people say

Minneapolis, Aug. 23

Being back in the Midwest, even if only for a few days, has me realizing how much it’s possible to miss a thing once it’s suddenly before you again.

The recognition was instantaneous as the Lyft whisked me from the airport to my hotel tonight. I may have grown up hours south of the streets we traveled along, but what I saw from the car window was home.

I left nearly three years ago and am only just now beginning to comprehend what an ex-pat life I’ve been living. Then, I sought and found something different, but here now is the familiar. The achingly familiar…

The trees: oak, ash, maple, and elm. The verdant shades their leaves parade as they dance on this furnace-like breeze.

Place names like “Hiawatha” and “Minnetonka,” “Peshtigo” and “Oconomowoc.” The way each rolls off my tongue as I cast them faintly out the open windowpane.

Rusted out grain silos holding court against newly-built apartment complexes. Building upon building of burnished crimson brick.

The unfailing humidity of late summer…but when did my pin-straight hair suddenly turn frizzy?

Clouds: big, bulbous things with heat-lightning in their bellies. They’re putting on a show for anyone who chances to look upward from their dinner table, or more likely, their phone.

The incessant hum of locusts droning outward from hiding places in heavy-laden branches and overgrown grasses.

Rivers swollen from a summer deluge. From hearty, well-fed, rain drops; dousings and sheets of rain.

And upon arrival to my hotel, there’s “Please” and “Thank You” and smiles from strangers.

The Midwest is just as I remember it, though not quite as I left it.

And it’s never felt more like home.

 

San Francisco, Aug. 17

I’ve been stewing this past week about something a friend, a long-time friend, said to me. The stewing has me feeling unjust, unreasonable, uncharitable even.

“He’s not my enemy,” she offered simply as we descended the staircase.

“Oh,” I muttered, quickly glancing down to avoid stumbling on the next step, “No, I….I…only meant. Well…okay, sure.”

We’d been standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out at one of the newer garishly appointed high-rises in Civic Center, when I mentioned what popped into memory then, almost in passing.

“I think he moved into that building. After,” I gestured toward the window. “But, I wouldn’t really know actually.”

As I turned away and we moved toward the first flight of stairs downward, she offered that she’d recently seen my ex over coffee with a friend of hers. They’re together now, you see. My ex and this friend of hers, as such things tend to go. The world…so small, after all.

“He’s not my enemy.” Her words echoing in my mind.

Was this feeling of unease from her having coffee with him at all, or the implication that I never would again? Had she crossed some undefined battle line? Had I drawn one?

Echo…echo…echo…

I wish I could have said, “Nor is he mine,” but that realization was still days away as these things tend to go.

What was has been, and there is no more. What else is there to say? The pangs of mutual friendship it turns out.

My school-aged claim upon my friend, whom I’ve known for years before ever meeting him, has me turning territorial in some very unflattering ways. Suddenly, I’m asking myself why she has a continued interest in someone I no longer know when the answer has nothing to do with me.

My ex’s new partner, as it is, has been a friend of hers for some time, perhaps longer than she’s known me; while my pettiness and immature assumptions are, unfortunately, something of a more recent nature.

Berkeley, Aug. 14

Lately, I find myself storing up topics of conversation; stockpiling them to sprinkle into future dinner discussions with J in hopes of still having some semblance of a complex daily life. Working from home most days and having little interaction with the outside world means something as simple as “How was your day?” sends me cartwheeling into the equivalent of verbal acrobatics at times.

“I talked to the lady down the hill today and she made a point to lodge her deep and lingering concern over the presence of the Eucalyptus trees adjacent to our property, as if we planted them and don’t worry about them ourselves.”

“The neighbor’s contractor explained they’ve been doing work on the house for the past 15 years, which means they’re either really terrible at what they do or the neighbors are full-on psycho as we feared. Apparently, the owners don’t like sharp edges.”

“The fire-prevention goats were around the bend today and I watched as their minder and his two herding dogs rounded them up and moved them onto the next section of overgrown grass to devour. It was magic!”

“By the way, my ex-boyfriend from ten years ago called last night and left me a drunken message asking for ‘closure.’ Can you please pass the salt?”

“King salmon is now $36 A POUND at the fish market. Outrageous!”

Sure, life is contained in such pedestrian moments; in sharing them with someone you build a life together. But if I share them ALL at once, where will I be on a “slow” day?