god Radio

Smoking my second cigarette, because I'm watching what I eat and thus can't go have a mocha frappe or other ice cream treat, window rolled a quarter of the way down in the rain. I get his voicemail.

Hey. It's me. I just wanted to talk. Work sucked. I got called in at 2:30 to work at 5, when no one would even work for me when I was sick. Then the meal I cooked was tough as hell. Well, his wife started it before I got there so I guess it's really her fault but it was still tough and they didn't eat it. Then I almost dropped my client on the floor. And he was using something that I'd never seen before and no one had told me how to use. ugh. So work fucking sucked. I just wanted to vent. Hope you're having a better night than me. 

I lit another cigarette. And heard the tell-tale piano playing

You might put your love and trust on the line
It's risky, people love to tear that down
Let 'em try
Do it anyway
Risk it anyway

And if you're paralyzed by a voice in your head 
It's the standing still that should be scaring you instead 
Go on and 
Do it anyway 
Do it anyway 

There will be times you might leap before you look 
There'll be times you'll like the cover and that's precisely why you'll love the book 
Do it anyway 
Do it anyway 

Tell me what I said I'd never do 
Tell me what I said I'd never say 
Read me off a list of the things I used to not like but now I think are ok 

Sometimes it's not subjective: wrong and right
Deep down you know it's downright wrong but you're invincible tonight
So you
Do it anyway
It's done
You did it

Despite your grand attempts the chips are set to fall 
And all the stories you might weave cannot negotiate them all 
Do it anyway 
Be honest, anyway 

So tell me what I said I'd never do
Tell me what I said I'd never say
Read me off a list of the things I used to not like but now I think are OK
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Woah woah woah woah

It's gonna be so very hard to say
And watch the trust and joy all drain from her innocent face
But you must
Do it anyway
It sucks but
Do it anyway

Call it surrender but you know that that's a joke 
And the punchline is you were never actually in control 
But still, surrender anyway 

Tell me what you said you'd never do 
Tell me what you said you'd never say 
Read me off that list of things 'cause I used to not like you 
But now I think you're OK 
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Woah woah woah woah

Everybody knows that you just gotta do it anyway

Do it anyway
Do it anyway
Do it anyway
Do it anyway
Do it anyway
Do it anyway
Do it anyway
Do it anyway

Cause you don't do nothing to avoid self punishment
You won't do nothing
You won't feel nothing
Gotta
Do it, do it, do it anyway
Ah
Do it anyway



And now I feel better.

*god Radio: What my uncle called it when the radio played something that really spoke to you, in whatever way. It's become a whole thing with those of us who were really close to him, especially as many of us have had times when we thought my uncle was speaking directly to us through the song on the radio, though I still use it for general mood-changing, epiphany-giving events.

**BFF's performance of the song on the Colbert Report is also great, though not as fun as the video above and no longer available online.

Fear of Walking

3:48pm. I'd only been walking 12 minutes. I felt like I should walk more. Wanted to walk more. But where I really wanted to go was near the park area a block down and a block over. It has a really cool lookout over the city, but is always populated by people who looked...well...sort of shady. Why are there always cars parked on the roads on the edge of the park, often with people sitting in them, all day long? Of course, I have some assumptions about why they are there, which might be wrong since sometimes I sit in my car just to kill time. But it is hard enough to enjoy walking on my own just around a few blocks, without having any major anxiety, so I decided to quit while I was ahead and just go inside the building where I go to my therapy and write. Hell, if it had been dark, I might not have been able to go on the walk at all.

When TyRoy was visiting, he would walk from his girlfriend's work to the downtown library, not far from where my therapy center is. In fact, the week after he left, when I had several hours between my individual and group therapies, I walked down there to read. In an email that night, I expressed that, though it was a brisk Midwestern January day, I enjoyed the walk, that I like walking through cityscapes. He agreed, said that he found the walk invigorating. But I'd seen him walking away from my car on his way back to his girlfriend's work, laptop bag hoisted across his back, and I'd seen a confidence, a carefree-ness, a self-possessed-ness that someone watching me, even on a sunny afternoon like today, would not observe.

The only time I've walked alone in my own neighborhood without my dog or a (male) friend was a few times when I walked to the bar a few blocks away and when I used to walk to work, which was only 5 blocks away. When I was a kid, I watched with envy when characters in movies would wander around late at night, whether they lived in a city or not. I envied people living in densely populated cities who could walk where they were going, or at least from the subway. I envied their autonomy, that they got to do this alone, without having to tell a parent or bring a friend or a dog. (Yes, now that I'm older, I realize that most of those people wish they could just drive their own car around and park it right in front of their house like i do.) Whenever my mom and I were out, or even if we were watching one of those tv shows or movies where I was envying a character's autonomy, she would drill into my head that you had to be vigilant while walking anywhere, watch out for robbers or rapists or murderers. Don't go here. Stay in the light. Keep your keys in your hands. Be aware of who is around you and what they are doing at all times.

Even once we lived in a better neighborhood, I wasn't allowed to just be out by myself (or at least that's how it felt.) I could walk short distances alone, like to friend's houses or the bus stop, but only if there was a specific person or people waiting for me on the other end of my journey. When I got the bug up my butt that I was going to get up early and go for jogs, my mom made me take the bigger and meaner of our two dogs. I was not told that this was because the dog needed the exercise, but that she was with me to keep me safe.

I know that my mom was just trying to keep me safe and trying to teach me how to keep myself safe. And I don't know how much it would have been different if my name had been "Christopher Michael," but I know some of it would have been. [Here is where I start to deal in some assumptions and some broad generalizations, but they aren't wild guesses. They're based on my observations and what I've read of/heard from/know of other people. Bear with me and don't be too quick to dismiss it.] You know why TyRoy walks down the city street like he owns it? It's because he does. Though he is subjected to a different cultural narrative as a black man, and I'm sure there are places where he will get a second (and third) look, a street in this part of the city isn't one of them. While I don't know this for a fact, I doubt he has been taught that everywhere he goes he needs to be constantly vigilant for someone who seeks to victimize him. I doubt he was told as a kid that he couldn't walk down his street without his dog or a friend and I know that didn't translate into an adulthood where he doesn't walk around his neighborhood without a dog or a friend.

My belief, deep down, is that I don't have any business walking around by myself, especially if I'm not going from one set point to another set point. If I do choose to do that, I need to be constantly aware (read: fearful) because I am a victim screaming out for a criminal.

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with this. I don't think that women (or any people of color or gay people or transpeople) should feel any less welcome to walk down the street in safety and confidence. I just know that is not the lived reality for many people. (And, yes, I do know that there are plenty of non-minority cis men who live with these fears, but they don't have this fear because of this cultural narrative.) 

I just know how stifled and constantly fearful internalizing this cultural narrative has made me. Right now, I'm lucky enough to have constant access to a car for any and all transportation I might need to do, ample parking, and a small yard for my dogs to use the restroom in, but I'm not sure what I'd do if I suddenly didn't have those things available to me. Obviously, I'd have to use other options, but how do you switch that off? Just the other day, I mentioned the possibility of going on a walk later in the day to my mom. "Better take the dog" she said. Rrrr, "It might rain. She's such a princess. She hates walking in the rain," I replied. "Who will protect you then?" she asked, sorta joking, sorta not. What happens if I needed to walk to work or to public transportation because I didn't have a car or the money for gas or car insurance/tags? How do I suddenly turn off that fearfulness that doesn't let me leave the house without a friend or a dog? And if I am supposed to be scared enough not to go out alone, does anyone really think that my stupid little Corgi is going to make me feel suddenly safe and secure? As long as this shadowy robber/rapist/murderer petted her, she'd love them.

For me, it's also become bigger than just being fearful of going on walks alone. As I said earlier, that has seeped out, turned into a belief that I have no place on the street by myself which then turned into I have no right to be out on the street by myself. Then to not having a right to my own self. It sucks and it's horrible and I hate it, but that doesn't change the fact that if something bad happens to me, someone will ask why I was there at that time, because it's my job to be constantly vigilant, not that the person or people who victimized me absolutely should not have done it.

***************************

A week later. The weather has turned back to what I think January should be like. It snowed this morning, though the streets are clear now. I bundle up, pop my earbuds in my ears, and force myself to go on another walk between individual and group. I even wore my ugly ass hiking boots, which are usually used for walking the dogs when it has snowed. I walk several blocks farther today. I left everything but my phone, ID, and debit card back at the therapy center. I try to walk with my shoulders back. The few people that I do pass on this chilly afternoon I look in the eye, smile, and say "hey" to. I'm not so much un-fearful today as I don't give a fuck. I don't walk all that long, just long enough for my face to be starting to feel numb. But this day I went for a walk. By myself.

42

The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything in that book of yours I ruined that one summer at the pool.

How old you'd be today if you were still alive.

I've gotten better. I can tell the story of how I got to this job to my clients, can tell them that I helped take care of you while you were sick, talk about how much of a burden people who do what I do now took off of our shoulders, I can do that without tearing up. Most of the time. I never thought I'd be able to do that but it's only taken me 23 months.

Every time an anniversary rolls around, I want to take the day off, hold up in the house, drink. I was going to try to go to your grave, when I thought I was only working Saturday morning until 11 then Sunday starting at 5, but, because of the previously made plans of the people I'd be staying with out there, I wouldn't have enough time to really visit, with them or with you. Work intervened though. At first, I was going to be working from 1:30 til 9 Saturday and Sunday. Then, on my way to work Saturday, the office asked if I could stay overnight. The family of the client I was going to be working with had recently had a sharp decline in ability, which was why I was working there to begin with, to help the family who had previously been able to give the client care by themselves in the evenings. But Friday night had shown them that this client needed round the clock care but they couldn't place her anywhere until Sunday. I'd already worked several hours in the morning with another client and was planning on going back there Sunday morning, so that my co-worker could have a full weekend off. Knowing this, and that Friday night I'd felt so heartbroken over this temporary client's situation that I'd cried on the way home in my car even after a last minute call to TyRoy, I still said yes. How could I not? What had it meant for us to have those skilled nurses and aides there at hospice? When we had reached the end of what we knew how to do for you physically, medically, and we were at the end of what we had for you or ourselves emotionally? At the client's house, I didn't think I'd be able to sleep that night. I can't always sleep in my own bed, much less on someone's else's couch. But I did. Though I worried about how well I was doing the job and how well I'd be able to do the job when called upon in the middle of the night, I had some measure of peace knowing that I'd wake up on your birthday in their house, doing this job that means so much.

I thought that after having been on the clock 23 out of the previous 26 hours, I would crash when I got home, but I wasn't actually very tired. Mom had brought up going grocery shopping after having lunch out, but I wanted to do something else. It was a bright, sunny day, not too cold, so she showed me this trail I'd never been to. Then we went on an hour long drive for her to show me this house that looks quite a bit like I've been talking about building for us whenever I win the lottery except it must not have been on the road she thought it was because we never found it. Mostly we just talked. Not about anything too deep, but we did talk and laugh.

And we drove one of your cars. Out of the four vehicles in our drive, two of them were once yours. There's this new country song about driving a dead loved one's truck. I'd heard the song twice before. The first time, I just listened long enough to see where it was going and then I turned the station. The other time, I just heard the last few lines. Mom heard it yesterday and texted me and the three other people who also own a vehicle that used to be yours to warn them as you have a way of influencing songs on the radio. While Mom and I drove around, I had to change channels twice because that song came on and I really didn't want to break down, but I promised you I would listen to it later.

Eighty-Nine Cents in the ash tray
Half empty bottle of Gatorade rolling in the floorboard
That dirty Braves cap on the dash
Dog tags hangin’ from the rear view
Old Skoal can, and cowboy boots and a Go Army Shirt folded in the back
This thing burns gas like crazy, but that’s alright
People got their ways of coping
Oh, and I’ve got mine

I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck

I leave that radio playing
That same ole country station where ya left it
Yeah, man I crank it up
And you’d probably punch my arm right now
If you saw this tear rollin’ down on my face
Hey, man I’m tryin’ to be tough
And momma asked me this morning
If I’d been by your grave
But that flag and stone ain’t where I feel you anyway

I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck

I’ve cussed, I’ve prayed, I’ve said goodbye
Shook my fist and asked God why
These days when I’m missing you this much

I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes, brother sometimes

I drive your truck
I drive your truck
I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind
I drive your truck


I miss ... well, I was going to say that I miss driving around with you, but I guess I still do that. Then, I was going to say that I miss talking to you while we drove, but I guess I still do that too. So I guess what I really miss is you talking back.

But today is your birthday. So I'm trying to focus on how lucky we were to have you while you were here, how much our life would have lacked without you, and what we've been able to take from the time you were here.

Happy Birthday.