Peter

Little Rat turns twenty today. He will probably spend the day, as he spends most of them, behind the deli counter at Safeway. After he gets off work, he will drive his car home, hugging the center line the whole way, and watch cartoons for an hour before getting up to go feed the dogs, unload the dishwasher, and set up the coffee pot for tomorrow morning. Little Rat requested Red Robin for his birthday dinner; so rarely does he expresses a preference for anything that we will gladly drop our busyness to drive an hour for an evening at the mall with him.

When he came to us, Emil was as wild as any feral animal. He'd ball his fists up and shove them deep into his eye sockets, rocking back and forth and drawing so far into himself that I couldn't see how he'd ever find his way out. Thirteen years later, Little Rat won't even hear of letting me do the dishes after I've cooked dinner. It's okay Kathy. I can handle it. You just go relax.

Little Rat loves to call me Kathy and pat me on the back. Do not be fooled by his sweetness -- he is no saint or martyr. His ability to get under my skin rivals even that of my sister (who he calls Frosty the Snow Meg. HA!), who can still make me burst into tears at 28. When it comes to our parents, he gets away with things the rest of us would've walked the plank for saying. He delights in the same worn out jokes time and again simply because they make me crazy. When Little Rat says You can live and Kathy, you're such a Kathy it drives me up the wall. I tell him that I'll pull his hair right out of his head if he says it once more and he looks at me for a second. I'll take that as a remark, Kathy. And then pats me on the back and scampers away to clean the kitchen.

If I write about Little Rat more than anyone else, it is because he is his own fairy tale, a happy ending that has nothing to do with the girl finding her prince. Despite the hope that I profess, I mostly pitch my tent in the realist camp. Over the years, I've found it helpful to keep my expectations low in life, to see the redemption in the single, tiny, bud and be thankful. Virtue is its own reward; we adopted these boys because it was the right thing to do and that would be enough to get us through. But somehow, where a wild, stunted, broken little child came to us, a composed, engaging, gentle, kind person now occupies his seat at the table. My tall, skinny little brother is a blessing beyond anything I could've imagined for my family. The plot is so full of redemption and Little Rat is the most compelling character I know.

See: Litte Rat, Birth to find out how he got his name.

Proposal

I will write all Christmas letters, thank-you notes,

and pick out birthday presents for our parents,

if you iron your own shirts, my skirts

(or at least take them to the cleaners)

and unscrew the lids from jars I can't manage.

Feel free to make more money

and have a hobby suitably removed

from the day to day to day pattern of our life.

I, naturally, will bear the children

and pray they come by your good sense,

my ear for languages, honestly.

Like my mother, I will want to paint

often and buy shoes, a new dress for a party.

Unlike her, I am willing to drive in the

city, at night, and through the dust and nothing

of Texas (when we move to be near your

aging parents). My driving might

make you nervous but it's a standing offer.

I'm willing to cook, but if you'd rather, standing in

front of a sink filled with warm soapy water

suits me, too. Please remind me that clouds

are a shaky foundation, of the danger of

drowning in a pool of my own whimsy. Because

I love you I will remind you to be kind

even when you are tired, to suffer fools gladly.

answer & some sentences

I was born in this small, scrubby town in the part of Washington that is never green. The air is very dry, the river is very wide, the sky is very big, and everything else comes in shades of very brown. The county fair is still a big deal. There are no good restaurants or traffic jams.

I have not lived here for years - and most of my growing up, my formation - took place in other parts of the world and country. Even so, there is something about this place that is coming home.

To: everyone who has ever asked.

This is where I'm from.

&&&

When I was a small child I hated when the bottoms of my feet felt hot, dry, or dusty like the desert. I thought it meant I was sick and going to die, like maybe a rattle snake was about to strike. I still get this feeling when I read books or watch films about the Civil War. It is the reason I can't stand to look at pictures of President Lincoln.

&&&

My grandfather always had parts of the newspaper spread around his easy chair. I feel newsprint and think of his whiskers, his undershirts, and the way he would lick his thumb before flipping through the deck thwap lick thwap lick thwap while playing solitaire. I love Louis L'Amour in his honor.

&&&

My cousins, siblings and I can sum up our entire collective existence using lines from You've Got Mail, The Royal Tenenbaums, White Christmas, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

I think you have a gift for it. That's the perfect blend of poetry & meanness.

We are getting this emblazoned on our family shield; it is the matching tattoo on our hearts and tongues.

&&&

We put on lipstick and met at the back corner table. Over a bottle of wine and calamari we talked about our grown up problems, which are neither earth shattering nor insubstantial. The little things add up: bills, broken hearts, fights, malfunctioning body parts, big choices and little information. The usual. You have a stack, too, I'm sure, staring up at you from your own plate.

Ten years ago we would've killed for a night on the town, some autonomy. We were bursting out of our skin, so eager to grow up, to step into the glamour awaiting our certainty & confidence. We sat on our grandmother's bed, chafing under our parents' restrictions while they played cards in the living room. We yearned for last night.

And then someone hit fast forward and last night showed up at the door. We put on lipstick like movie stars and met at the back corner table. We ordered red wine and ate calamari, and my cousin told me about her grown up problems and I told her mine. It was perfect, exactly what we ordered. And I couldn't wait to go back to my grandmother's house, where she peeled me an apple and sent me to bed.

&&&

I've memorized the signs and symptoms: clubbed fingers, dyspnea on exertion, orthopnea, hypertension. I know what to look for and I don't want to see it. So I close my eyes and listen to her stories instead.

It is too late now on the East Coast, so I resist the urge to call my own mother. Tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next -- ad infinitum -- I'll tell her how much I love her.

&&&

Our fathers come from wild, raucous people on both sides, but our grandmother took them to church and out of the chaos and rebellion, God delivered her a circuit preacher and an itinerant teacher. A generation removed, we kids are respectable now, if not exactly settled. There's no use in denying our stock, though. We still move in bands and ride our figurative horses bareback. The dust doesn't settle beneath our boots.

&&&

Even though I would've been blind and had a smile full of crooked teeth, I'm the sort of girl who would've made it from St. Louis to the Willamette Valley with you. Sitting atop the buckboard seat or walking beside the wagon, I won't complain through the months of snow or the showers of arrows. This may be where I'm from, but I know how to be a family on the move; what it takes to make a home on whatever claim we stake.

absit iniuria verbis

Nursing school has made my hands useful and I am thankful for this. In college, I hopped around between disciplines, trying to find the right balance of poetic & practical, a way to meld an inclination toward language with a compulsion to make a tangible difference. Chemistry was too academic, English too indulgent, so I settled on politics and its implicit room for negotiation. After college, I slowly drifted back towards words, burying myself in paper. I could look beyond my computer screen and see how the sentences might rise off the page, walk up the Hill, and maybe someday change things for someone somewhere. It never seemed immediate enough, though, and left me fidgety and empty handed at the end of the day.

Now, I can walk into a hospital room, right into the very heart of it, up to the rawest parts of people and their problems and do something. Even when it's only adjusting a machine or changing a bandage (which it often is, in these early days), the situation changes and it's usually for the better, if only marginally. I walk in and wash my hands. And then I put them to work.

I have high hopes for this last semester of nursing school. There is still so much too learn about the human body, about the ways to manage illness and tend the sick, how to size up both small and gaping needs and then meet them. Tonight, though, I hang up the phone and then sit still for a long while. My friend -- my lovely, kind, funny friend -- is in terrible pain. And there is nothing for me to do, no words to speak that might make it better.

***

She is allowed to call me Katie because she's known me since I was born and because there are some battles that aren't worth fighting. There are ten of us cousins, like stair steps, a jumble of comings and goings, laughing, eating, fighting and jostling, so it's always you kids or Meggie, Andrea, I mean Katie when she needs just me. I don't mind, even when one of the boy's names gets thrown in: Hannah, Ethan, what's your name...Katie! But today when she hollered for me from her bedroom Sherri, Ellie, Kathy! I almost, but not quite, threw my tightly held respect for elders out the window so I could set my grandmother straight about my name.

***

When you don't know what to say
how to string the words together
and then match them up
with your own roiled thoughts

if too much time has passed, sorry
sticks in your throat, or the nervous
syllables shrink and retreat
back down to the safety of your belly

sometimes it's best, the only
way really, to go with that
tried and true old standby

hello

shopping

On my way home last night, I stopped at the grocery store where Rat works to find out when he'd be home. My parents are in St. Maybe for the weekend, which means that I am in charge of Little Rat, who is in charge of Max & Henry and keeping the stove burning. This past week he has worked 43 hours -- 43 hours of slicing deli meat and offering samples to customers who don't care so much about his quirky kindness as they do getting their bologna and going home.

Often, I can stand behind the gourmet olive bar and watch him, so intent on packaging a perfect pound of Amish potato salad, for 5 or 10 minutes before he sees me. He is the tallest -- and youngest -- person behind the counter by far. His colleagues are mostly middle age women with so many troubles and children that Peter can't keep track, try as he might. Earlier this fall, his car was in the shop so I sat in the parking lot one night, waiting for him to come out from his closing shift. Well past midnight, I sat there fuming over my own lost sleep (he is a well known dawdler...), preparing a talking to about being considerate and using your cell phone to let people know about changing plans. When he finally walked out his black apron was folded perfectly and hanging over his long, thin arm. Behind him, a dumpy and tired looking woman followed a few yards behind. I rolled down the window, and opened my mouth to let him have it. Kathy, I'm sorry I'm late. The manager made me stay late because 2 people didn't come in tonight. This is my friend from the deli. Can we take her home? Her son stole her car and she doesn't know where he is now. So much salt and light. What could I do but unlock the doors?

Last night, customers were 3 deep across the counter, though, so I walked up to the far end, by the cooler case of hummus and brie and called out his name. I get out of here at 6:00. Do you want to me to buy you dinner? You know I will, Nurse Kathy. It's okay, Rat. I've got stuff to make good food at home. You just come home ok? Ok! See you tonight. Love you! The old man next to me looked first at me and then at Rat, who was holding up a slice of BBQ loaf for the man to approve the thickness. The man nodded his approval and then said "Looks like you're really lucky to have a date tonight with such a pretty young lady." Little Rat pushed the button on the scale, waited for the label to print out, and then handed the meticulously folded bag to the old man with a smile. Kathy's just my sister, sir. I know that there's no one out there for me in the universe, but that's okay. You have a nice weekend and enjoy your holiday, sir.

****

We went in to buy lemons, capers, and raspberry sorbet -- the things one needs for an impromptu dinner party. Randomly we roamed through the aisles, laughing & talking about the past few weeks, paying little attention to the list or the other shoppers. Even so we noticed the couple right away, standing by the pyramid of citrus fruit, their heads close as they peered over the list in her hand. In condiment aisle, we waited patiently for him, his sweater the color of butter, his hair the color of snow, to move his cart aside so we could pass. In the juice aisle, we met again, and I saw that she was both truly ancient and truly beautiful - with lips the color of raspberries and skin like a burnished peach, thick silver hair twisted into a chignon. Finally, at the far end of the cleaning aisle we collided. Squirrel, all jokes and PR savvy, said Uh oh. I guess the secrets out that we've been following you two around the store. Oh no! We love to see beautiful young people enjoying themselves! Reminds of us when we were young, she said. Besides, he said, we don't know where we're going any way! Squirrel laughed and bid them Merry Christmas while I hurried down the detergent aisle. On my own birthday, these beautiful ancient people, the fleetingness of youth, the looming specters of regret & heartbreak filled my throat and eyes a bit and I didn't see the puddle of Tide in the middle of the floor. Thankfully, when I started to slip, Squirrel was right there behind me, ready to steady and then walk through the store some more.

I know this now.

Real things are not always simple.

Simple things are rarely easy.

Easy things are never real.

Advent #2

Little Rat loves Christmas.

Last night when I came home, he was sitting at the kitchen counter, listening to the Chipmunk's version of Linkin Park's In the End it Doesn't Really Matter.

Hey Rat, what's going on?

Just trying to get into the spirit of Christmas, Kathy.