Festive Egg Squares and Dirty Laundry

"I don't tend to do things like wash my dad's back. My brother and I don't do that. It's a boundary we try to keep."

The nurse looked back at me with neutral, blinking eyes.

"Oh. I guess I never thought about that."

I am at my parent's house, watching over the nurses and watching over my dad. I've slept here for the past four nights and have found a new appreciation for my mom's role, which I call, "CEO of The Nurses."

I selfishly feel ill at ease because I cannot get my dad to smile today. He wants me to be with him, yet I am far from delighting him. I was all bundled up – Winter coat, scarf, hat, gloves, boots – ready to leave and go meet my boyfriend at the gym. But upon saying goodbye to my dad, I could tell something was wrong.

"Dad. Are you OK?"
(Shakes his head "No.")


"Is it something physical?"
(Shakes his head "No.")


"Is it something mental?"
(Shakes his head "Yes.")


"Are you sad?"
(Shakes his head "Yes.")


"Is it because I am leaving?"
(Shakes his head "Yes.")


"Do you want me to stay and we read more out of the Duluth book?"
(Shakes his head "Yes.")

I've been reading stories to my Dad out of a book about Duluth. I discovered that the nurses are reading the stories to him, too. There is something comforting about the stories. It's like a non-threatening balm in knowing that we are not going to encounter any death, sex, violence, or depression. I hate it when I am going along, reading a book to my dad, and I get to some passage that I just cannot bear to read aloud to him. It might be something about a person feeling trapped and unable to run (try being completely paralyzed), or it might also be something that I never would have wanted to read aloud to my dad, like basically anything with a trace of sexual innuendo.

While my mom has been away, it has been a strange sensation to think about "needing to get home" in the same sense as one might need to get home for their small children or family pets. Each day this week, I have wondered about when my dad will fall asleep and when he will wake and I've tried to coincide opportunities to read to him.

When I cannot bring any delight to my dad, it only adds to my feelings of failing at playing my proper role in this unit of related human beings. I feel as though I am pushing further and further to the outskirts of familiarity with my family. I do not know if that is my own doing or if it is the fallout of exceptionally unique circumstances. Whatever it is that is pushing me, I feel as though one or two more shoves to the edge could completely throw me outside the invisible lines of the family circle and I can see myself tumbling into an emotional abyss of estrangement and pathos. Which brings us to Christmas.

The Christmas season for me was like a business trip to Atlanta. I just wanted to get through it. 

There were so many family crises going on at the same time that it was almost comical. The one moment in time that sticks out in my mind as coming the closest to celebrating the birth of the Savior was during the late morning on Christmas day.

I arrived at my mom's house, and everything just looked spectacular. All of the Christmas ornaments twinkled from the brittle Winter sun, and my mom had a fresh coat of lipstick on with a warm motherly smile. Everything felt calm and familiar in a 1990s kind of way.

It was just the two of us. My dad was sleeping and the nurse on duty was a sweet, quiet woman from Ethiopia. Despite the chaos of life, my mom held fast to a Christmas tradition that goes back years and years. She got up early (or stayed up really late) and she diced and sliced onions, celery, tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese, pork... She cracked eggs and baked and baked until out came the annual Festive Egg Squares. 

This is a dish that is good but not necessarily mind-blowing amazing. Still, we all really like it, especially with a dollop of sour cream on top. We always get the name wrong, accidentally calling it things like "Egg Bake" or "Egg Surprise" to which my mom jokingly pleads, "It's Festive Egg Squares!"

Like a military commander determined to win the war despite losing consecutive battles, my mom made those damn eggs like it was her calling. And I loved her fiercely for it. I felt the invisible swirling cloud of family chaos lift as my mom and I sat in the sun-drenched dining room, eating Festive Egg Squares on Christmas Day.

But happiness and calm don't stay around too long in this house, and it went away pretty much as quickly as it came. I was visiting my parent's house a week or two later, and I ended up in an unfortunate battle over something pretty stupid. I got critiqued by an outside family member for bringing my laundry over to my parent's house. This is something I have done forever. Sometimes I do the laundry myself, but, mostly, my mom does it. LET IT BE KNOWN, here in this naked, public blog, that I, a 31-year-old grown woman, get my laundry done by my mother.

Anyway, it was a stupid fight with, unfortunately disproportionate fallout. I feel a familiar urge to run away and hide in the cul-de-sac. I've been indulging visions of moving to Shanghai or simply driving to Iowa. But I have a history of running away, and I know that it only makes things worse.

I think that everyone in my family in general is just super strained and worn out.

When religious people say that God only dishes out what each person can handle, well... God must have considered my family to be Titans. No, Olympians.

It's funny. I originally started this blog so I could complain about trite yet annoying things in life, such as how I inadvertently purchased spoiled milk from the grocery store (yes, brand new sour milk actually happened). Then I naturally spilled into the realm of lonely business traveler, then lonely single girl. But it was not until cancer crept in to my family circle when all bets were off and I allowed myself to write about anything and everything, including hospitals, old people, smoking, anger and death.

Now, I am at a loss. I have been conflicted about this blog as well as conflicted about my entire family for quite some time because I no longer fit the Brand New Sour Milk mold.

I no longer fit the Brand New Sour Milk mold because, well, I am... happy.

Yeah, I'm happy, dammit.

I have an amazing companion and we do tons of fun things. My mind is alive and open to the world. I devour books (which still takes me a few weeks, but I feel like I am devouring them), I listen to music, I delight in home cooked food. I go to art galleries and unusual events put on by my creative friends. I got my hair highlighted (I had fallen months behind).

It's like, I am doing cool shit and I do not have time to sit down with this blog and wax poetic about all the sad things we go through in life.  

I've heard before that when your inner energy does not match the energy of the people surrounding you, you tend to find yourself in different locations. I see how this is true. I do not feel comfortable carrying my happiness on my sleeve because this is not a time when others can feel very happy for my happiness. And it sounds spoiled and self-centered (doesn't it?) to want others to acknowledge my newfound happiness.

I remember a time when I used to sleep until 3:00 PM in the afternoon. Everyday. I would go sit on my parent's deck, still wearing my pajamas, and I would smoke, and smoke, and smoke cigarettes. I would look at this one particular tree in their backyard, and I distinctly remember watching it change through the seasons – green, gold & orange, bare to sticks, covered in snow, then soggy wet with tiny green buds. My thought that entire time was, "I wonder if I will still be sitting out here on my parents deck smoking cigarettes the next time that tree changes." I saw that tree change over two dozen times. It just kept changing, but I just stayed the same.

Stuck.

But I am no longer stuck.
I am flourishing.
But I am flourishing in a harsh environment.

I am like an exotic sea plant flowering peacefully next to a hot, volcanic geyser piercing the ocean floor.

Sure, it is nice to be happy. But I want to be surrounded by other happy people too. On January 9th, 2012, I think I may have been given a potential chance.

A baby was born into my family, Samuel Wesley Andersen.

Sam is my nephew.

See, this is why my mom is gone. She is off visiting Baby Sam in the Pacific Northwest. My mom is getting her feet wet as Grandma Mary. Each time I talk to my mom, her voice is dazed in starry-like wonder. Sam is so good, Sam is so cute, Sam is so small, just like a football.

I need to get myself out of the Midwest and I need to go meet this Sam. Despite photos that, to me, look just like an infant version of my brother, Sam is not real to me yet. But he will be. I can only imagine the tears that will flow and the smiles that will widen the first time I get to hold Baby Sam.

Hopefully, soon with time, Sam can teach us all how to be happy, joyous, and festive again.

Back to Milk

I hadn't planned on drinking the second mini carton of milk, but it was just sitting there on the table and I needed something in my hand.

It was late, I was upset, and the milk reminded me of the comfort from a childhood school lunch line. The carton of milk was sitting next to an identical empty carton of milk and a half-eaten slice of chocolate cake. The two milks and piece of cake sat on a cheap wooden table in the middle of my "junior suite" in a business hotel less than a mile from the airport.

Everything about the junior suite hotel room was effortlessly convenient and utterly impersonal... Everything except for those little, seemingly vulnerable, out-dated-looking cartons of milk.

I pulled open the waxy cardboard nozzle, and the luke-warmish creamy taste mixed with the slightly fuzzy texture of the spout pushed me over into it. I started to cry.

Familiarities. Cycles. Looping back to the beginning after reaching a false finish. These are the positive or negative promises of life. My dad used to say it like this, "The only thing you can count on in life is change." I am not sure who was first quoted saying that famous saying, and I am too tired and milk-drowsy to look it up, but you can bet that whether it was an army general, a president, an author, or a janitor, they knew that their sunny days would eventually turn shitty and their shitty days would turn back to sun.

I shuffled into the bathroom, clad in a scratchy hotel robe. I looked at my jumble of cosmetics and rolled my eyes at all of it. I had a flight in less than eight hours and I hadn't even told my team what time we should meet. There were logistical elements, like returning the rental car, meeting in-coming clients, and hitting the ground running in the next city. But all I wanted to do was sullenly sip on that little carton of warm milk. It was crazy to even be drinking the stuff. My life had been all about almond milk for months now (it actually has more calcium than dairy).

I did one of those dramatic things that girls do every once in awhile. I sat on the cold tile bathroom floor and slumped over to cry.

Like a tired and confused kid, I drank my milk and considered things with an air of self-pity.

I thought about this week's return to business travel and how it was endangering my recent sense of life-satisfaction and overall serenity.

Airports, airplanes, strangers, hotel beds – these are all things that I enjoy. These are things that have interesting and exotic scents. These are things that make you feel like you are going places in life.

But sometimes in life, you want to be right here. Not there. Not the next city. I liked what here was beginning to feel like, and now my here requires a Do Not Disturb sign. Here is a grey treadmill at 7:00 AM, an endless supply of Complimentary Spring Water bottles and daily-refreshed boxes of Kleenex folded like little Japanese fans.

Jon Kabat-Zinn tells us that wherever we go, there we Are. But, what if what we Are is tenuous at best? What if what we are relies on a delicate balance of friends, family, grocery stores and guitars? (These are all things you can't really take with you on business trips.)

Strip away the friends, the groceries, the cats, the familiar-floppy-home pillows and scented candles and you get... Valet parking. Courtesy wake-up calls. Baggage claim. Geometric carpet.

I am forced to find myself amidst the business traveler camouflage; forced to unearth me and my green bike bag from the brown, black and navy blue polyester pant suits.

I'm tired and lost tonight. Tomorrow I might purchase a magazine at the airport. I will look out the airplane window, waiting for the silver fuselage to puncture the morning cloud-cover. I will continue to search, looking inside my chest cavity for something comforting, something that is familiar and reminds me of... Me.

For tonight, (which is actually early tomorrow), that comfort comes from a soggy, little carton of school-lunch-line milk. That comfort also comes from writing to you.

Drink up. Be brave. Get in bed and try to sleep. You can pack your suitcase in the morning.

The Alphabet Board

IS THE MACHINE WORKING

That was the first sentence I saw my dad spell with his alphabet board. My mom worked with him, patiently asking: "Is it Red? Blue? – Blue? Ok, F?...G?...H?...I? – I? Alright, next letter. Red? Blue? Orange? Green? – Green? Ok, P?...Q?...R?...S? – S? Ok, is the word, IS? Alright, next word..."

I had learned of my dad's new mode of communication a week prior to this, when I was sitting in a cafe in Tel Aviv, Israel, reading my emails. There was an email from my mom titled "A Breakthrough" and at the time it occurred to me how rare it was for 1.) My mother to write a group email and 2.) for her to use such a bold title. I remember shaking as I read each sentence in this email, tears spontaneously rolling down my cheeks as I learned:

Dear Family, After watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I decided to Google "Locked-in Syndrome." I found and watched a You Tube video that showed a young woman who could not speak, and she was choosing letters from an 8 x 11 inch colored alphabet board. So, I decided to make one just like it and see if it would work with Chuck. We have tried alphabet boards with him before, but I thought that the colors might be more enticing. Each row of five capital letters is a different color (red, blue, orange, green, purple). Chuck nods at the correct row as the color is spoken. Then he nods at the letter in that row that he wants. In the last hour, he has spelled the following sentences: To nurse Janet: "I have something heavy on my stomach. Also tell Mary." To me: "Tell me if you know who has been calling this morning. Can you help me make a phone call this afternoon?" To me: "Last evening I had a strange experience. I was walking." When I asked him if it was a dream, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. I read, and re-read the sentences that my dad had spelled. I could not stop reading them. It was strange how the wording actually sounded very Dad to me, in his way of speaking proper, thoughtful English. Reading the sentences my dad had written was like discovering messages in a bottle from passengers of a sunken ship... A ship that had sunk over two years ago. Last month marked the two-year anniversary of my dad's painful journey locked in a motionless body with a rare disease called Critical Illness Polyneuropathy. This wildly cruel condition somehow came as a by-product of surgery to remove a small cancerous tumor. Cancer is a word that, with all due respect, sounds like a common cold in my world. At least with cancer, there are doctors who know what they are doing. At least with cancer, there are fundraisers and ribbons and support walks. At least with cancer, you get to unite with other patients and families who understand what you are going through. But what my dad has is strange and rare. What my dad has makes neurologists scratch their heads and consult each other. Perhaps it is not fair to call our experience with cancer and its after-effects a journey, because sometimes it feels like we are going no where. It is one thing to be physically stable and it is another thing to be physically improving. I feel that my dad is stuck somewhere between these two states. He certainly is stable, he certainly is getting better, and he is noticeably starting to move more and more, even if just in the changes of his lip and tongue movements or his growing ability to shrug his shoulders. But my dad is still very much paralyzed and very much a quadriplegic. There is now this one very different thing, though, and had you asked me last summer or even the summer before what it would be like to "hear" my dad speak through the use of a rainbow-colored alphabet board, I don't know if I'd have been wise enough then to know that the idea, although exhilarating, would also sound terrifying. Within the short span of a month, The Alphabet Board has changed things. My dad now has the ability to give specific feedback regarding his physical needs. He can now tell a nurse to add a pillow under his head and he can express that his breathing is not feeling right. When I saw him spell: IS THE MACHINE ON, I got the chills because I knew what that meant. I knew that my dad, who breathes through a tracheotomy and a ventilator, must have been having trouble with his breathing. I remember that, at first, I did not want to spell with my dad. In fact, I was afraid of it. I was afraid of what he would say to me because I wondered if he might be disappointed. I knew (and still know) that I am disappointed in myself. I'm disappointed that I have not cracked the code, have not had the breakthrough moment of communication and delight that would set the tone for hours, days, and months, of in-depth communication and connectedness that I have been waiting to regain with my dad ever since July 31, 2009. That was the day my dad went silent. My dad still doesn't talk, but now, in a way he does "talk." And oh, does he have things to say. In some ways, The Alphabet Board has shot my dad straight to the top. He has gone from the silent no-opinion patient to the All-Encompassing Chief of Staff, able to comment good, bad or ugly on the care he receives. Now – Let it be known that my dad has the most fantastic care I could ask for, and for that, we feel very fortunate. It is a miracle to go from visiting my dad in a downtown nursing home to visiting him in my suburban childhood home (the former TV room, actually). But when I say good, bad or ugly, I don't think it should come as a surprise that in some ways, perhaps in many ways, my dad is downright angry. Only now in this past month has he had the ability to specifically express certain feelings of resentment, and I don't think he'd be too upset if I told you he has even spelled out a few F-bombs here and there. It is painful beyond belief when he spells things like: IF I AM STILL HERE TOMORROW, WILL YOU SPEND SOME REAL TIME WITH ME Or even things like: NEVERMIND JUST FORGET IT But, on the flipside, there is a moment of complete elation when I come home from a business trip to see my dad spell: HOW WAS YOUR WEEK and then experience the warmth of his smile as I start from the very beginning, describing the make and model of the airplane I flew on, the city I was in, the hotel, the project, etc. Using The Alphabet Board is pretty easy. First, you make sure you are holding it up so he can see it. My mom put the same alphabet on both sides so that as you are holding it, you can see what he is seeing. You hold a notepad and write out the letters as he spells them. Sometimes it is confusing because you don't realize that he has finished one word and is beginning another. On more than one occasion, I have mistakenly told my dad, "No, dad, that word doesn't exist" only to realize that he is not spelling ICANT but rather, I CAN'T. My very best night of spelling with my dad was my first one. I had willed up the courage to use The Board with him but I was nervous as he lay there, so sharp and attentive. We started to spell, and the thrill of guessing certain words before he was finished spelling them was addictive. My mom, being a teacher and lifelong librarian, is particularly good at this. My dad might start with WH – and you know that he is spelling "WHEN" or "WHY." But, on the first night of spelling with him, I jumped the gun a few times, and I guessed words that were completely wrong and not what he was intending to spell. Each time I would do this, I involuntarily slapped my forehead and yelled at myself. Pretty soon I said, "Dad, I am like, the worst contestant on Wheel of Fortune, aren't I? It's like I keep saying, 'I'd like to solve the puzzle please' with only one or two letters in place and then I get it completely wrong!'" With this, he laughed, and I started laughing too. His eyes were shining and he looked like... my dad. If I had heard his voice, he might have had that silent, scratchy laugh that he gets when he is laughing really hard. It is the laugh that I have inherited from him. ___________________________________________________ In writing so candidly about my dad, I run the risk of offending him as well as my family. But I also have things to gain, like giving my dad a voice and giving myself an outlet for my pain. Somehow the idea of complete strangers maybe reading about this bizarre experience helps me feel less alone, because lately alone is how I feel about this situation. My mom is of a different generation and age, where ladies know to ask about the health of each other's husbands. Women of a certain age become the wise observers and victims of heart attacks, car accidents and (multiple) divorces, so they know what to do when a chronic, never-ending tragedy strikes. Women like my mom's friends know that they should take my mom out to dinner just because. They know that they should sneak miniature bottles of wine into a rehab center or hospital just because. They are women who have experienced life, so they just know. In all technical terms, I am a woman of a certain age, too. An age where my peers are getting married, buying houses and having kids. But the one thing that is very, very uncommon for women of my age is to have parents who are in desperate need. Rarely do I hear one of my peers discuss their concerns over the health of a dad or the psychological well-being of a mom. No, women of my age are still just too goddamn young to really get it. So, as you might have guessed, I'm not getting any miniature bottles of wine. Tonight has been a difficult night for me, because I have learned that my dad has had a particularly angry, sad day and he has been spelling some poignant, hurtful things. I cannot say that I blame him. But tonight, after talking to my weary (yet always strong) mom and after having my own little woe-is-me cry, I am caught feeling conflicted about what to do next with The Alphabet Board. I want to connect with my dad. I want to somehow convince him that we are in this together. I want him to feel less alone. But I also feel scared. I feel scared for him and sometimes scared of him. I'm scared of the reality of vulnerable parents, and scared of the reality of, well, a shitty reality. What do you tell your dad when you don't know what happens next? How do you comfort your father when you still want comfort from him? Sometimes I imagine sentences that my dad might spell to me and I think about how they would make me feel. I don't know if I could handle it if he said something hurtful, but that is not what I really think about. No, like the child that I will always be to him, I imagine sentences that he has said to me in the first 28 years of my life, and I picture the scene where I would slowly write out the letters and then smile in delight if he spelled: I AM PROUD OF YOU RUNSKY (his nickname for me) I LOVE YOU

Priorities

I walked by my dad's room tonight and his nurse was reading to him. She was reading out of The Catcher in the Rye.

I stood back in the hallway so that he could not really see me. I watched his eyes as he looked up at his nurse. She was touching his arm on and off to give emphasis to certain phrases. My dad's expression was concentrated yet serene. He was listening to the story. 

It was a peaceful moment between patient and nurse, a moment of intellect and quiet beauty shared between two human beings.

And it made me jealous as hell.

For a moment I lost all gratitude for our brilliant nurse, and I stood there fuming at the fact that I was working on a report for my job while this girl got paid to hang out with my dad. Earlier in the day, I heard the electronic voice of my dad's DynaVox eye gaze software. The nurse was practicing with my dad, assisting him on the long journey toward learning a new form of communication while trapped inside a motionless and voiceless body. This DynaVox practice made me jealous, too. I wanted to ditch my work emails and go practice communication with my dad.

But communication with my dad has been tough, because I am never here. I cannot completely blame that on work or travel or even his medical state. It is just life that gets in the way. When things were more dire and my dad lived in the hospital, rehabilitation center and nursing home, I connected with him more. I sacrificed most of my own life priorities and focused exclusively on his. There were times when my dad and I connected then. Times when, despite all the medications, tubes, tests, and terrors, I could look into my dad's eyes and feel like I was helping him. Those were the times when I felt like we completely understood each other.

We all speak delicately to my dad, because in a world as unimaginably uncomfortable as his, times of serenity are sacred. When a person is not able to speak, you tend to talk in the same manner that you would speak to a young child. And no matter how creative or confident you are, it is virtually impossible to maintain a one-sided conversation. A pair of piercing blue eyes stares back, and that can intimidate even the most seasoned conversationalists. In this I am, of course, speaking of myself. 

My dad used to come to me and talk about the ups and downs of life, and I know that he felt guilty about the potential of over-sharing with his kid. I remember my dad telling me that it was the same for him with his own parents. They would have in-depth conversations with him about life issues far beyond his years. It was his skill for listening that drew them in and his knack for synthesizing data that kept them hooked. I think just as my dad was a child-sounding board for his parents, I was the same for him. 

This is part of what makes the current scenario so cruel. To have my dad right there, looking at me, and me feeling too tongue-tied and scared to break into a new form of one-sided conversing. For the nurses, it is different. They have only known him this way. They are able to create special bonds and inside-jokes that only exist in the world of half silence. They are able to do this freely, but I am still holding on to the memory of my dad's voice.

It is a late night of working for me. I am so exhausted and so desperate for some upcoming extended rest. A phone call from a friend shook me up, because I was told the infamous words, "Cheer up." I've been told that before in life, but it takes on a different meaning now, when I am carrying the invisible load of my dad on my shoulders. I carry him everywhere. I carry him onto airplanes and I carry him into meetings. I carry him with me at weddings where fathers and daughters walk down the aisle and do father-daughter dances.

My mom came into the living room to check on me. Since returning from India, I've received an extra dose of love and care from those who see how tired I am. 

"How's it going?" she said, with the interest and care that only a mother could conjure up for her kid's millionth PowerPoint presentation.

"Fine. But I was told to cheer up and it made me feel like I'm a downer. Am I?" I asked.

My mom looked at me and got a little teary eyed. She proceeded to release one of her spontaneous and inspiring, out-of-nowhere pep talks that could only come from a woman who has been through as much as she has. I listened to her and felt the instant relief that is so rare in life, the kind of relief that can only come when you are lucky enough to receive the perfect set of words for the occasion at hand. I had my blog open when she said it, and I was tempted to take notes. But what I do remember verbatim made me feel less critical of myself. What my mom told me was this:

You know, one thing you have to remember is that this is really, really hard. We are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult, on-going situation. This might be inspiring for some people and it may have affected their lives in a positive way. But there is nothing good in it for us. The fact that we get up everyday, we tell jokes and we go about our day, that's amazing. Because no one will ever know what it's actually like. 

I stopped feeling jealous of my dad's nurse about five minutes after the reading encounter. I'd gone into his room and made my usual surface-level chit chat. 

"So. You two are reading The Catcher in the Rye?" When I heard the sound of my voice, I was embarrassed at the obvious envy placed in the statement. Reading was my thing to do with my dad. But I had stopped the ritual, months and months ago, when his temperament and emotional state became entirely unpredictable.

My dad looked straight at me through half shut eyes. He was obviously sleepy, yet aware of me standing before him in the present moment. He probably knew. He probably knew what his daughter was feeling. He probably could see how a 29-year-old nurse could be threatening to his 30-year-old daughter, as though there might actually be some competition for the "Chuck's daughter" position. 

I do know that no one can compete with me. I do know that, no matter what, I am Chuck's one and only daughter. I am deeply, entirely grateful for his exceptional nursing team. I continuously acknowledge the fortunate luxury to have these women and men to look after my dad in the comfort of our own home. It is a gift to have someone like his nurse who understands him enough to know that reading to him matters.

__________________________________________

I just walked outside and I looked up at the night sky. The stars are out. I watched a satellite slide by, efficiently circling the Earth. On days when work and responsibilities take over, I notice nature more. It grounds me to watch leaves move in the breeze. I am lulled by the sound of sprinklers and lawn mowers.

Tonight, I will not judge myself for having compromised priorities. 

No matter who you are, and regardless of your individual responsibilities, sometimes you just have to ease the pressure off yourself a bit. We guilt ourselves for not spending enough time with our parents, our children and our significant others. We feel bad about living far away or about living close and not taking advantage of it. We lament over not getting enough exercise and we obsess about eating the wrong foods or not eating enough of the right ones. We fret over unknown futures and underdeveloped finances.

We debate over our next hairstyle.

Someday I hope to learn how to detach, even for a few minutes. The weight of maintaining the Self is tiring. I think it might be one of those things where the less you try the easier it becomes. But until then, the responsibility of looking after one's life priorities can be exhausting. 

I'm not going to worry about my dad right now. I'm not going to marinate in guilt over the fact that it is coming up on two years and I still have not developed an effective new relationship, complete with extracurricular books and in-depth communication. In time, it will come. 

At least for right now, my dad and I can still look at each other's faces and smile from time to time.

The Smell of Hope: Haves and Have Nots in India

From eighteen stories above the slums of Mumbai, I sat looking down at an endless chain of red and white tail and headlights while eating spaghetti Bolognese by myself. Three different waiters tended to my table like concerned pre-school teachers, frequently checking if Miss Susan was alright.

I'd asked for a piece of paper and a pen and received a piece of paper, a pen and a newspaper in return. I had no phone, no iPad, no leather zippy case with important papers inside. Perhaps these waiters were perplexed with the image of a lone business traveler who wasn't maximizing her time and instead simply eating while at dinner.

I hadn't planned to eat alone, but only twenty minutes prior, my colleague's family had unexpectedly Skyped her just as we were leaving to take the elevator to the restaurant in our hotel. As soon as that Skype phone rang, I accepted my fate. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, I knew I would be left behind to contemplate my role as second best. So, I took myself to dinner instead.

Perched at my eighteenth floor table for one, I sat underneath an airconditioning duct which left me cold and confused after spending twelve hours in the sweltering, soupy heat that exists below the soft cool cloud of the Westin hotel. But I felt too cold, and also awkward; over-pampered like a figurehead emperor with no clothes.

I'm here in India doing market research for a food packaging company. Riding through the streets of Delhi and Mumbai, I've been obsessed with capturing the perfect photo – The one photo that will encapsulate the indescribable contradiction that is India. Bouncing and winding, whizzing past countless photojournalist money shots, I've been too slow to capture most of what I've seen.

It is very difficult to capture this country in photos. India is a contradiction in it's bold juxtaposition of elements that simply do not go together until seen with the naked eye. Like ice cream and pickles, you cannot quite understand the strange harmonies of India until you see them first-hand. And to try to capture them on camera is quite nearly impossible. India will only show you her gems when she feels like it, and that's normally when you set your camera down. The images that taunt and haunt my mind are centered around color.

• World-weary, mud-streaked, tin-roofed grey shacks with a pinkish-orange-watermelon sari-clad woman swishing past
• Unabashedly cozy interiors made of cinderblocks painted turquoise and illuminated by acid lemon-lime fluorescent light bulbs
• A tan, black-fly eaten dog naps while a rusty red bus blows its horn
• An old man in white selling his mangoes and lychees to woman covered in black from head to toe (expect for her eyes)

To me, this is India. It's the color wheel gone haywire, making up twenty-first century Van Goghs and Monets and selling them for ten rupees a piece.

In the Mumbai-based Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, the author could not have prepared me better than with this:

"The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air... I know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilisations in resurrection and decay... It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live... It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense and freshly cut flowers... The worst good smell in the world."

One day in Delhi, we got out of the van to go do an interview. As I was putting on my backback with all my video camera equipment, I spotted a boy. He was intently looking down at a handfull of potato chip wrappers, counting them, sorting them, and considering them from all different angles. All the wrappers were the same – small green foil packs.

"What is he doing?" I asked our interpreter.

"Ah, yes. He is collecting. Because, you see, in India, you can get one rupee per empty potato chip wrapper, so this boy is collecting them in order to make a profit."

I felt as though I couldn't move. My feet, clad in brand new REI sandals, were like lead in the mud-dried street. I could not stop looking at this boy. He was so serious, so thoughtful, so mature in his task. I discreetly took this picture, and thank goodness he never looked up. I needed to capture him but I did not want him to know that I was taking his image away with me. I only felt respect for his potato chip wrapper counting, and I did not want him to somehow think otherwise.

As we walked through the dark cement hallway of the interview participant's home, my head was spinning still thinking about that boy. Here we were, in India, doing research on food packaging – something that I used to affectionately call decorated trash when I first got into the business of food package design – and this young boy was an ultimate end-user of this business chain without even getting to eat the potato chips. Well, that was something I assumed. Maybe (I hope) he actually did get the chance to eat the chips, but instead I had more of a notion that he had fished these wrappers out of the trash.

But going through trash in India is a commonplace task, and quite clever in a way. Although we do this in the United States to a certain extent, Indians are expert at finding new uses and values out of everything, whether it is earning a rupee per empty potato chip wrapper, making a game out of a discarding tire, or recycling old car parts to fix a three-wheeler taxi.

When I came out of the interview, there were suddenly several children in the street, intent on playing a game that looked like an ancient form of cricket.

"See, the boy throws the ball, and if he knocks down all the piled up stones, the others have to stack them back up before he runs to them." Our interpreter smiled at me with knowing eyes. "Inventive kids, these children are."

The children. Next to the colors of India, what I notice most often are the children. They are fearless and cunning, often gathering in small societies of their own to discuss unknown topics while hanging onto dirty metal fence posts. They often look serious yet relaxed, embodying the calm optimism that is the backbone of India.

The driving. Ask anyone who travels the world and they will tell you that India is home to some of the craziest drivers on the planet. But once you accept that the vehicles here defy the laws of physics in their ability to twist and bend around motorbikes, cows and humans, you discover that the level of road rage and traffic angst is far, far less than that in more developed cities. I reflect back to three weeks ago when I was working in LA. We were stopped at a traffic light in the heart of Hollywood. Two men in giant SUVs got so heated up with road rage at each other that I screamed to my co-worker to "Just DRIVE and get away from these guys - they probably have guns!" This while in India, I actually feel more safe with my duct-taped seat belt.

See, the thing I'm learning from India is that the world is not only contradictory, it's backwards. India is teaching me that sometimes you have more in life by having not. 

If you did a litmus test of overall sentiment, I am certain that the citizens of Delhi and Mumbai are more confident and assured than the citizens of Los Angeles and New York. 

So, which side do I find myself on, the Haves or the Have Nots? I think what it comes down to is what we all know deep down – there is no technical requirements for either position, except that it all depends on how you see it. 

I've been seeing it Have Not for most of my life. If you read my blog, you certainly should know this by now. However, I am an optimistic pessimist. This makes me OK in the eyes of both the glass-half-empty and glass-half-full people. At least I hope that is the truth.

In the spirit of the opposites, contradictions, and backwards learnings of India, I've come to my own up-side-down discovery. 

I've had to go around the world just to learn that I want to be home.

Now there's an India-ism.

For those of my generation who also enjoyed Alanis Morrissette, you can grin in understanding at how I had her "Thank U" lyrics in my head upon boarding the flight from Paris to Delhi. "Thank you India... Thank you blah blah.." It just kept playing over and over in my head. I am not going to spend precious time Googling the meaning behind her lyrics in that song, but I like to think that she, along with countless other lucky Westerners, had the chance to come here and get bent back into shape. To smell the stench of hope and to laugh at the easiness of it. 

And let's remember that finding hope is easy. Every single human being has the choice to choose hope, no matter if he is living in a blue tarp on the sidewalk or if she is sitting in a high-rise hotel, feeling lonely as hell. It's just that our phones, iPads, and leather zippy cases get in the way of that hope. 

If you asked her for advice, India would look you in the eye, laugh roll her eyes. She'd shake her head, blurring the bright reds and golds of her bindi and earrings. She'd put a knowing hand on your shoulder, take a deep, cleansing breath, and tell you, 

"Janu, pay attention. Sometimes in life you have more by having not."

Records Have Heartbeats at the End of Them and June Beetles Have Hard-Shelled Backs

If you allow a record to continue playing past the last song, you'll notice a rhythmic heartbeat sound.

It goes ba-boom scratch scratch scratch, ba-boom scratch scratch scratch, ba-boom scratch scratch scratch, ba-boom scratch scratch scratch...

I'm sitting on my couch, and I've decided not to flip the record that I just played. I'm not sure if this is bad for the needle to just skip unendingly at the end of this record, but the sound is so soft and rhythmic, I can't see how it could be a problem.

I'm so tired and I also am feeling helpless. I feel helpless because the man at the Bryant Hardware store sold me a flathead screwdriver yesterday instead of a Phillips screwdriver. The reason I needed a screwdriver was because I have to put new license plates on my car. April was my month for getting new tabs, and the people at the Department of Motor Vehicles office surprised me by giving me brand new plates. They said it happens every seven years. I had "Get new tabs" on my To Do list for the entire month of April. The day that I went to get them, I did not get the feeling of satisfaction in X-ing out the box and crossing out the To Do (I do both) because finishing the tabs task only created another: "Get a screwdriver."

It was when I worked for a Fortune 100 company that I learned about drawing boxes next to To Do items and then utilizing a two-part process (first X-ing out the box, then crossing out the To Do). I had accidentally peered at the notebook of a much older, wiser and savvier colleague. Discovering the Box/To Do-X-and-cross-off technique was on a par with learning how to drive stick for me. It took a while to put it into practice, but once I got the hang of it, it became an utterly useful and effective skill.

It looks like this:

❒ Get a screwdriver

You can imagine, I'm sure, that if that box had a red 'X' through it and if the "Get a screwdriver" were crossed out in red as well, you'd feel like you had fucking accomplished something.

Well, I don't have a screwdriver, and it's May now, so I legally should not be driving my car. I tried to change my license plates with the flathead screwdriver, but a friend of mine oh-so-helpfully pointed out, "I WOULDN'T DO THAT IF I WERE YOU, YOU'LL STRIP THE SCREWS," which only made me feel worse.

While riding my bike to work today, I fantasized about walking into that hardware store and talking to the man who sold me the flathead screwdriver. It would be a scene like in the movie Falling Down. I would be Michael Douglas (obvis.) and I would go completely ape shit on the nice hardware store guy. I would spell out what a shitty thing it was for him to sell me the wrong screwdriver when I had even specifically designated my intended use.

(Flashback to the hardware store: The cheerful bells on the door jangle as I enter in and skip up to the counter. "So. I need to change my license plates, and, being an Uptown girl, my only tools are a pair of scissors and five wine bottle openers." (Laughing and smiling from me, this was back when things were easy and good.) "I think I need a screwdriver for license plates?"... The hardware store man laughed and was even jovial with me as I told him I intended to come back one day and buy one of those full-set tool kits for girls. He so confidently handed me the flathead screwdriver that I did not even pause to wonder if it was, in fact, the proper tool.)


Here's what would make Hardware Store man feel really, really bad. Right now it's 11:00 PM at night, and I'm listening to the heartbeat skip at the end of a finished record; the ultimate soundtrack of lonely desperation, if you ask me. I really need to go to Walgreens because I am out of one of my meds and I can completely feel the wrath of it. I'm sitting on my couch, crying my eyes out, trying to figure out how to get to the goddamn pharmacy to get a Bipolar medication when my car is now officially illegal to drive. "Just get in your stupid car and drive the five minutes to get your meds and buy a new screwdriver at Walgreens! Change your license plates there in the parking lot before you drive home!" you might say. But, with my luck, I will get pulled over, I will be crying and the cop will see this. The level of complication in the events of this evening will skyrocket, and this will be just the start of Scene Two in my personal remake of the movie Falling Down.

So, here I am, stuck.

I called a friend tonight, and I awkwardly asked for help. It didn't go too well. I should have been more direct, but it was hard for me to do that because it is humiliating to explain mental illness to people. Sure, everyone has their off nights, but for some of us, we get so stuck, we get completely paralyzed.

When I used to get paralyzed, I would call my dad, because he is of the same ilk and I wouldn't have to explain anything to him. If I needed to have him come get me in the middle of the night to eat slices of coconut cream pie at the 24-hour Perkins while draining two metal carafes of black coffee, just to talk about some pansy shit like, existential anxiety or something, he was my man. I realize that most dads are not like mine. Most dads are more manly. But my dad gets me. He knows just how to fix things. Isn't it ironic that he cannot come save me these days because he himself is now paralyzed. Literally.

So, my To Do list item goes un-X'ed and un-crossed-off, and here I sit, alone on my couch, feeling so tired, yet so unable to rest because I am a smart, high-functioning Bipolar patient and I know that I cannot go one more night without this medication. So, what I'm going to have to do is get up and drive myself to Walgreens, illegally and by myself, even though all I really wanted tonight was to have someone come save me. I wanted to have someone come take care of me without my having to ask.

We each have varying degrees of neediness. We each have that sensitive longing for someone to just TAKE OVER and steer for us sometimes. Some of us convince ourselves that we like to get through it on our own and others of us roll over like the June beetle and wiggle our hair-thin legs in the hair until a peaceful youth has the decency to come along and gently roll us right-side-up off our hard-shelled backs. I am the latter. I am the June beetle. I am sensitive and I want to be taken care of, but I am also one tough bugger. I get rolled over onto my hard-shelled back without even asking for trouble, and I have to wait it out until some form of help comes along.

But sometimes, like tonight, no one is around to roll me up off my back. Sometimes, you just hang upside-down and you go, "Well, this sucks."

I make my To Do lists and I try to get stuff done. I try to move forward and I hope by the grace of God that I am able to 'X' things out and then cross them off.

So, with that,
❒ Go take care of myself, right now.


Alright, FINE. Let's go, Susan. Get in that illegal car of yours. It's time to go get your meds and a fucking Phillips screwdriver.

I Know You, I've Seen Your Profile.

It was my third night staying late at the office, my little silver Jetta once again the lone car sitting in the parking lot. I was in the middle of working on a 200-slide PowerPoint when my friend, Dajana, sent me a a picture of a cat. I thought it was hilarious and immediately opened my facebook page to place it on my wall.

But when I opened up my facebook, I was distracted by a picture in the lower right corner of a man and a woman holding a baby. They were family friends from long ago, and this baby they were holding, I guessed, was their grandchild. Facebook wanted to know if I wanted to be friends with these people.

Instead, I went to their daughter's page. We'll call her Ashley. Until seeing the photo of her parents, I had not known Ashley had had a baby. I started clicking through her photos. There were some cute ones of the baby wearing one of those bath towels with the animal hood. Then, I kept clicking...

There is Ashley, toasting wine with her beaming parents, her husband, her sibling, her grandparents... This one is with Ashley in a hospital bed, IV still in and baby just born... Oh, here is a good one of Ashley super pregnant, standing in front of the school where she got her Masters degree... Now this picture shows graduation from said graduate school... Photo of big dog, husband and Ashley... a medley of photos of other people's weddings (once one falls, they all do)... photos of the big dog as a smaller puppy... ...The honeymoon in South Africa... Photos of Ashley's wedding... Oh my gosh, back to college dorm pics... beer pong...

In less than ten minutes, I had gone backwards in the entire adult life of this girl.

I realized that I had been crouched forward, my face no less than ten inches from my computer screen. I'd been analyzing each and every photo, at some point snidely commenting aloud, "Perfect family, perfect lives."

Whoa. Was I falling prey to the oldest trick in the facebook book? The profiling of people's profiles, deciding that I knew their hopes, their joys and sorrows simply through the images they uploaded to the Internet? 

Yes.

I went downstairs for a bathroom break. I ran to the bathroom because our office is full of windows and it's scary at night.

Back at my desk, I opened the picture of the cat that Dajana sent. I looked at my own facebook profile and sighed with something I'd realized the other day – the fact that the last three posts on my wall were pictures of my cats. Holy fuck, did I really do three posts about cats in a row?

Yes.

But then, in a moment of egotistical self-soothing, I opened up my pictures and saw that I mostly had images from the travel that I do for my job. I have pictures from China, Russia, Brazil, and all over the USA. But I don't have baby pictures. I don't have wedding or honeymoon photos. I don't have beer pong photos, which actually stings the worst because I have never actually played beer pong. I'll only admit that here so my secret is safe with a few scattered readers. Otherwise, I lie and say I've played. I went to a small, private liberal arts college where I lived in the Art Studio. If you are out there, and you read this, please, invite me over to play beer pong. (But do so discretely.)

My point about the photos is something we all know but I had to remind myself of it tonight.

We are not our facebook profiles. We are not what we tweet about. In an age where we are living to social network instead of social networking to live, we need to periodically remind ourselves that the crap we put out on the Internet – it's not us.

Sure, our cyberselves are manifestations of our behaviors, patterns and decisions, but they aren't babies. They aren't weddings or honeymoons in South Africa. They aren't research trips to China and Russia.

Our cyberselves are just digital zeros and ones.

So, no, I don't instantly know the past decade of Ashley's life. I may think I do, but that's just a trick of the Internet. If I really want to know what's up, I gotta do it the old fashioned way and talk to the girl.

And since we are not the Internet, I'm not going to worry about looking like a crazy cat lady with cat pictures on my profile. Because I'm not. I don't even like cats that much, but I like putting pictures of them on my facebook profile because I think they are funny. Seriously, I do.

No Lol here.

Russian Hospitality

The first time I came to Russia for work was 13 months ago in January. Exiting the doors of Pulkovo II International airport, I had my first taste of the freezing, damp air of St. Petersburg. I could not stop coughing. It felt like a metal glove had reached deep down into my lungs and made a fist while my pink insides stuck together like a hot tongue to an icy pole.

It did not matter that I was equipped with the warmest North Face Parka, gloves and boots. It did not matter that I was wearing state-of-the-art REI long underwear. It did not matter that I am a native Minnesotan with practically 100% Norwegian blood pulsing through me.

The Russian Cold was the first thing I remember.

On that first trip, I had the opportunity to work in St. Petersburg and Moscow for three weeks with my close friend and co-worker, Sara. Sara was pregnant at the time, and I still have vivid memories of her sending the poor roomservice boys back to the kitchen because they had, in fact, brought the bright yellow mustard when Sara had specifically requested the darker, grainier kind that looks more like Grey Poupon.

Had someone told me back then that, in a years' time, my passport would fill with visas and I would visit Russia five times, I would have spilled my own borscht. (I ate a lot of borscht my first few times here.) Today, as I look back on my travels, I feel transient and out-of-place. It does not feel like I am sitting at a hotel desk in Moscow. It just feels like I am on another business trip in another regular city.

The chance to visit a foreign city multiple times offers one the advantage of building up cultural experience via repetitive exposure. There is no guarantee, however, that the conclusions drawn upon cultural experience are accurate as they are only tied to individual perception. But that is all any of us has to go on, right? The cultural fabric of our own lives is all we can use as a backdrop from which to compare new and different cultural experiences. That being said, these were the first things I noticed during my beginning trips to Russia (I believe Sara would concur):

• In Russia, people wrap their suitcases in clear plastic
• In Russia, they are always cleaning the floors
• In Russia, all the hallways in apartment buildings are painted green
• In Russia, people do not smile at each other
• In Russia, people have big stuffed animals in their apartments, even adults
• In Russia, every household owns a cat
• In Russia, everybody smokes
• In Russia, the traffic is terrifyingly bad

So, these were some of my initial observations. Because this was my maiden voyage to the Motherland, you could call some of these observations stereotypes because I was only paying attention to the things that I initially thought would be true. It would be similar to saying:

• In the United States, everyone is fat
• In the United States, all the buildings are huge
• In the United States, the people are ignorant about their own history and culture

etc, etc...

Once I got past this (that is to say, once I had traveled to Russia multiple times), I was able to notice nuances that had previously been hidden to me.

For our job, we have the unique advantage of seeing a slice of real Russian lives because of what we do. We go into people's homes and interview them about their lives, their habits, their hopes and dreams and the products they use. Before my first time doing this, I was warned that Russian women think it is a big deal to be interviewed in their homes and may dress up for the occasion. As researchers, we actually like to see people in their native environments, so I was initially frustrated when, for example, one woman opened her door wearing a green velvet evening gown and silver high heels that looked like Barbie slippers.

But I must admit, the Russian home visits became something ritualistic for me. Don't get me wrong, they were never easy. I am terrified of the small, rickety elevators (although I have been told on more than one occasion that they are actually quite reliable, solid Soviet construction – something which I have come to half believe.) Setting up my camera equipment was sometimes a challenge in small kitchens (albeit, no worse than setting up equipment in New York City.) Despite some of these factors, as I said, the home visits became ritualistic. They became... cozy.

The daily ritual of the Russian ethnography was like a ballet; Climb into the warm car, listen to Russian radio (which is an awesome mix of songs you would never think you might hear back to back), fight through traffic, drive around tall Soviet style apartment buildings looking for small apartment numbers, go up the little elevator or trudge the flights of concrete steps, enter the warmth of a Russian apartment, met by coffee with lemons, tea, cookies, cats and frequent cigarette breaks... Like I said, it was a beautiful little ritual.

Partly because of my current research topic and partly out of personal interest, on this trip I have been doing a lot of thinking about what makes me, an American woman, different from the Russian women I know and continue to meet.

In my experience, there is a spectrum that ranges from mild hostility to solemn respect between Russian and American women. There are some habits we do very differently and there are other habits we wish we could adopt of one another.

Russian women of today take exquisite pride in how they care for themselves. I could easily make the argument that Russian women spend more time and care more in how they appear to the outer world that we do. To look well-put together is basic hygiene in Russian culture. In addition, it is more common to hear Russian women say that they are doing this for others as opposed to for themselves. They are staying slim, doing their hair, wearing makeup and perfuming themselves for their husbands, their coworkers and their children.

American women, on the other hand, display a wider range of behaviors and beliefs tied to their physical appearance. Sure, some American women are just as focused, if not more so, on their physical brand. But others display the freedom to forego makeup and wear men's cologne with a tattered plaid shirt because they themselves like it. Seeking secondary approval is just that; it's secondary. Approval of the self comes first. It is much less common to hear an American woman say, "I do it for my husband."

In my mind, there is a feminine mystique possessed by Russian women that is fed by two things: It is the way they look and act in front of me as well as the vague and inaccurate notions I have of iconic things like Russian Mail Order Brides. Russian women are more demure and less loud than American women. Russian women are more expert at attaining the husband/kids/family equation and balancing it effortlessly with a complicated job like engineer or chemical factory manager (I am endlessly impressed with the technical job titles of Russian women. Their jobs titles make our job titles sound soft and fuzzy.) The attributes above are those that I wish I possessed more of.

But I am not mysterious. I am not demure. I am a talkative, funny, dream-big American. 

And on that note, I get the sense from my Russian friends and colleagues that they admire the American spirit of independence and exploration. My friends here always patiently listen to me spew out my hopes and dreams, and they do not judge me when the next day I change my mind to something entirely different. My friends here may not smile at each other on the street, but they do smile at me when I am talking to them. They smile when my co-worker, Emily, sings along to American songs on the radio. They silently delight in us trying to learn their difficult language (they try to help us speak it), and they embrace the times when we want to soak up their knowledgeable stories of complicated Russian history. Their reactions to our whimsical behavior make me feel effervescent.

Things get confusing when analyzing gender roles in a cultural context. It is a very subjective topic. So my hypotheses of the differences between Russian and American women will stop here.

Today I feel nostalgic. Today I feel a bit sad. I just ate my last meal in Russia – Eggs Over Easy (which I had to explain to the roomservice boy who told me that it was very interesting new term). Today I feel unsatisfied, like I have only scratched the surface of this huge nation that endlessly enchants and haunts me at the same time. I hear the British accents of the interpreters in my head, I see the intelligent twinkle in the eyes of my younger Russian counterparts.

I remember the time an interpreter gave me a small glass bear – a mishka – when I told her my good friend is nicknamed "Teddy." She told me to try to hold on tight  to my mishka. I wrapped the small glass bear in toilet paper and I tucked it inside my shoe for the long flight home. Upon unraveling it a few days later, I spontaneously started to cry while sitting on my living room floor. I missed the warmth that I had received in cold Russia.

There is something so elegant, so blazingly silent – It is the strobe lights pointing up at the mammoth Stalinist architecture, It is the folds in the pink satin ballet slippers at the Mariinsky Theatre  – I cannot explain it, you have to taste it for yourself. In the end, the best I can do is call it the magic of Russian hospitality.

Walls

Source: http://tinyurl.com/3yxarwe

"So what do you do when you start getting sad in remembering?"


"I try not to think about it."


This is a phrase, try not to think about it, that has been administered to me countless times throughout my childhood and into my adult years. It is a phrase that I used to consider to be a bullshit philosophy; bottle up your emotions and decide to deal with them later, knowing that later will never come.


It wasn't until I was in therapy about a year ago, when I had just finished a long, unending rant when I started to reconsider this concept. I went on and on about the doom in my world. My therapist sat, patiently waiting until I had purged myself of what seemed like every single negative thought that had been stinking up my brain for months. When I was done, it was almost like a scene from Good Will Hunting. There was a pause, then she said,


"So. Your family members tell you to try not to think about it. You know, Susan, you may want to consider acquiring this skill. Just a little bit."


It caught me off guard. My therapist was suggesting that I learn how to bottle up my feelings when things got rough. Little did I know that she was absolutely right.


Walls. In the past year-and-half, I've learned how to build them.


Walls protect you. They hold your guts in. They neutralize your emotions when you witness sights and situations you could not have previously stomached. They dull the sharp needles that poke you behind your eyeballs.


When I stand over my dad's hospital bed at our house, my mind tries to play these tricks on me. I'm standing there, and I'm watching my dad sleep. But I squint my eyes and I can see him behind the dugout at the softball field, announcing that I will be pitcher this inning. Then I see him driving a boat down the St. Croix river. Then I see him sitting outside by the fire, legs widely crossed while he's leaning back in his chair, telling me about this crazy flight he had from Minot, MN.


No. Stop it. Don't do that, you stupid brain.


I cannot go there. I cannot let thoughts and memories creep in. If I do this, it can be the middle of a completely ordinary day, and I will start crying. 


If I drive by Lake Calhoun, and I allow myself to picture one of my walks with my dad, if I allow myself to go beyond the 30 second mark and I get real deep into a memory of that time when my boyfriend dumped me and my dad forced me out to walk around the Lake. He took a picture of the sunset on his mobile phone then later printed it out on a color copier and wrote a quote on it about God always loving me... If I let myself remember how my dad bought me a hot dog and a Chipwich ice cream sandwich that day and said we should probably eat junk food because it would be good for us...


There are times when I have to pull my car over to the side of the road. That is what happens, if I don't use my walls.


Despite them being completely counter to my personality, I believe in my walls. My walls protect me and they protect my family. They help me stay strong. If I spend time with my dad, and I don't have my walls up, I will not be strong for him. If I am not strong around my dad, he will start to worry about things. He will worry about why everyone is talking about his blood sugar. He will worry about What's Next.


I don't think my dad is worrying about me. No, I think it is at the point where he is consumed with survival and so each day the man I see is actually primarily a human being in a remarkably complex medical state. Secondarily, he is my dad. There are times when he is calm and feeling OK when he can primarily be my dad. I'm not going to sugar coat, these times are rare now. But when he has a dad moment with me, it is extremely powerful. A smile, a wink, an eye roll at my latest business travel saga, that's My Dad.


I'm not suggesting that you build walls. Maybe you are lucky enough that you don't have to. But one thing I am suggesting is that you call your dad. If you can, go over to his house. Give him a hug. Tell him three things that impress you about him, then tell him he's a good dad, just for being one. 


You should do that. Now.

Welcome Home, Stranger

In the space of three months, I've interviewed countless women in multiple countries, achieved Diamond Elite Plus Status on Delta Airlines, and developed a sensible habit of reading my book before bedtime to trick my brain into rest. Permanently stuck on a timezoneless schedule, I've learned to manipulate myself to know how to act like a normal human being. (Now you should eat, now you should focus on work, now is when you should go to bed.)

Months back, I was so stressed out. The luxury of hindsight more accurately would define it as depressed out. I remember looking in the space of time standing between Fall and Winter and not knowing how I would make it out alive. There were so many logistical factors surrounding my life in relation to being away for business travel. Anxiety got the best of me at four in the morning when I would go through questions that had hazy answers.

• How will I store my car when it snows? (I live in Uptown. Enough said.)
• How will my mom fair by herself while I'm in Russia and my aunt is in China?
• How will I entertain a Thanksgiving guest in my dirty, cat-hair-filled apartment?
• How will I cope with missing a best friend's wedding while I'm working half a world away?
• How will I keep saying goodbye to my quadriplegic father, over and over, without him able to say goodbye back?

I keep it no secret to friends, family, or strangers on the street that I manage a common, chronic mood disorder. I take meds for it, I'm fine, heck, I'm considered "extremely high functioning." To me, it is no different than if I were studious about checking my blood sugar if I had Diabetes. But one of the downfalls of managing an illness that occurs in the mind is that things get complicated when life throws blows at you that would affect anyone in the mind.

It has not been until now, since I've been home for an entire week – the first time in a while! – , that I have been able to look back and put things into perspective. I was beating myself up, angry at my stupid brain for being so despondent and indecisive.

Being away from home for long stretches of time is complicated and sometimes lonely. Coping with a severely handicapped family member is complicated and sometimes lonely. 

The interesting part, though, was that the depression never happened while I was away. The only time I started to worry was when the airplane started the descent into Minneapolis.

Sometimes, to get healing, we have to run away. This is something I have always known. When I was a kid and my mom got mad, I would storm up the stairs and SLAM my door. I'd stay locked in my room and make miniature paper books for my Barbie Dolls. When I was in college, and I was behind on my latest painting, I would scamper off to the dorms and do shots of flavored vodka with my roommates. We'd listen to Hip Hop and dress slutty, even though we just stayed in our dorms and danced. When I was in my twenties, I ran away to Canada, and hid there with my cell phone turned off until I knew it was time to go back home.

In a way, business travel for me this year has been a form of running away. New York, Moscow, São Paulo, Miami, London... side trips to Amsterdam and Prague... truly my job has offered me the ultimate escape from a life that I had learned to detest. Travel allowed me to be someone else. I learned new languages, I met new people, I bought new clothes, I ate new food. I reveled in the excitement with co-workers and clients, all of us quietly turning a cold shoulder to the worlds we left behind. 

But there was something different about me from the others. When the projects came to an end and the wing tips went up for the flight home, others would silently smile into their phones with excitement while I looked out the window, feeling anxious about what would be waiting at home. Will my mom have had a hard time shoveling the driveway? Will my dad be showing signs of another infection? Will I have zero text messages, zero facebook messages, and will I be leaving on another business trip on the one night that I get invited to do something with friends?

This was how it went. Coming home meant questions with no answers, a stressed out family life, and a vacant apartment with only the promise of a barren refrigerator and two shedding cats.

The cats. I used to be just so into them – using my laser pointer, brushing their fur, and snuggling on the couch. Then, once my new home became my suitcase, my two pet cats became more of a nuisance than anything. Finding people to watch them, cleaning up after them, watching their questioning miniature marble eyes as I shut the door countless times, rushing to the airport with other things on my mind.

Riding on that airplane, stomach knotting up as the familiar geometric farmlands came into view, I longed for that old feeling. It was the old feeling, when life was normal, when I used to get excited to land in Minnesota. I'd be excited to see my boyfriend, excited to go out to eat with my parents, and excited to see my friends. Somehow, all of that changed a year-and-a-half ago when my dad got cancer. It changed me. It changed us. It changed everything.

Until now.

Something is different. Something is lighter. My dad is still in the same condition, that has not changed. I'm still a single thirty year old, that has not changed. I still have two cats who shed, that has not changed. But something is definitely different.

I'm starting to like being home again.

Last night, I stood in my kitchen, slicing bell peppers, cucumber, tomatoes and onions. I put together a salad with mixed greens, roasted chicken, olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. I watched a Netflix movie and brushed knots out of Vinny's fur. I cleaned the bathroom and did the dishes. Before getting into bed, I took my pajamas out of a chest of drawers. All the while, my expensive business traveler suitcase with the bright, shiny new Diamond Elite Plus Status plastic tag was stored away in my front hall closet. It was a night of doing regular, normal, stay-at-home things. And I loved every minute of it.

Tonight, December 23, 2010 is my Christmas Eve. We are celebrating the big party a day early so that tomorrow, on the real Chrsitmas Eve, we can be at home with my dad, by his bed, hopefully singing a few off-key Christmas carols (actually, they better not be off-key cause my dad's a musician and he's got perfect pitch. He may not be able to sing, be he certainly can HEAR us). So tomorrow, we make a new, different Christmas. We adapt. It's not like it used to be. It's completely different. But adaptation is a necessary trait if you want to survive. 

It's actually one of the things we humans do best. We pack up our stuff, move to higher ground, and call it a new home. Sure, it's different. It's not the same as the past. But it is what we make of it.

I'm home.

Small Times in the Big Apple

Lower East Side
Photo by Emily Grace Sauer

"I don't know if you're gonna like this or not, but it's a place where you spend a lot of your time..."

Emily told me this as I unwrapped the birthday present she gave me. Seeing as how I had given her a used Xikar lighter and Dunhill cigarette case for her thirtieth, the possibilities for my gift were endless.

I opened the package to reveal this. It is a photo Emily took with a Holga when she was along on one of our NYC trips last fall. I knew this was New York the moment I read the eloquent graffiti text. This is quite possibly one of the best pictures I have ever seen.

When Emily and Co. were with us in New York last fall, I watched in wonderment as non-business travelers made the best out of a normal business trip. They conquered New York, finding more Big Apple fun in four days than I have found in four years. But that doesn't mean I am a bad traveler. It just means that when I'm here for work, I am not a tourist.

Business travel is truly one of those grass is always greener situations. It's just never as cool as it sounds. In fact, some of the things that I have learned to cherish are things pleasure travelers completely overlook. And the things pleasure travelers like I could probably give two shits about.

For example,

• I like airports with efficient security.
• I like Airbus airplanes (more than Boeing airplanes).
• I like hotels without revolving doors.
• I like 24-hour hotel room service.
• I like 24-hour hotel gyms.
• I like unusually large hotel swimming pools.
• I like amply stocked mini bars WITHOUT the touch sensor lasers that charge you if you move an item (not good to find out after you have picked up each candy bar in deciding which one to eat.)

I like working toward Diamond Medallion status on Delta NOT because of the free miles but because I can say I have flown around the circumference of the Earth five times. This year.

It's lame, but also kind of dorky cool.

There are many things I love about having the opportunity to travel for my job, but it's true that I have a hard time seeing places through the eyes of a tourist if I am living out of a suitcase.

Today Johnny, our driver from the Dominican Republic yells at me.

"Susi! Look, Statue of Liberty!"

"Yes, that's great Johnny, but I have my eyes closed because I'm carsick right now."

"Susi, Look!"

"Okay, yep, I saw it. There she is. Thanks Johnny" – (he is so sweet to always be working to make a tourist out of me) – Oh no, I'm gonna be sick..."

I almost threw up in front of my boss. But I held it together when she informed me that if she watched me throw up, she would probably throw up too.

Just another Manic Monday.

So, there is this one thing I find interesting about the people I meet in New York. No matter what background, no matter if they are research participants, cab drivers or clients, they are so incredibly proud to invite you to explore their city.

I used to joke about this with Sara. We'd have just finished six hours of interviewing and criss-crossing five boroughs when a sweet woman would go into detail about where we should go eat and then see a show. We would smile and nod, smile and nod, nod, nod, then upon bidding farewell collapse into the back seat of the car contemplating what we would each order from room service once we got into our pajamas.

And the next morning, instead of dishing about cosmopolitans and NYC men, we'd be all,

"I watched Avatar last night."

"Huh. I rented Couples Retreat but fell asleep."

I have a hard time believing the truth in this business traveler reality when, as a kid, I would get a present from my dad each time he would come home from traveling on Fridays. For a number of years, he was a traveling business consultant, and all that meant to me was that he was up early and stressed on Monday mornings, rushing to eat cereal wearing a tie and crisp white shirt. Then at the end of the week he would mysteriously walk in the door, wearing a beige trench coat and smelling like leather and cold air. He would drop his suitcase and pull out some small exotic thing.

It did not occur to me how he acquired these treasures until as an adult I traveled with my clients who, as parents, would hurriedly purchase small airport trinkets for their children.

So, no. I do not take the Staten Island Ferry or get tickets to The Late Show (only today did I realize that The Late Show is right around the corner from my hotel.) But that does not mean that I do not know or love New York.

• For me, New York is Johnny, our driver (the happiest driver you'll ever meet).
• For me, New York is bumpy landings into LaGuardia Airport, where it always looks like you'll end up in the water.
• For me, New York is a packed Sheraton hotel lobby, filled with Asian flight attendants and Model U.N. high school students.
• For me, New York is quiet dinners with my co-workers and boss, swapping stories about the workday over a bottle of wine.
• For me, New York is a soft white bed, made this morning by the hard-working room service staff.
• For me, New York is a fat slice of Brooklyn pizza, when I've promised myself I'd eat healthier on this trip.

For me, New York is staying up late in my hotel room, writing about my life as a business traveler.