Rebecca Handler

“Why don’t we remember everything?”

I am driving up Clarendon, past the park that’s on the side of a cliff, the one with the steep wooden staircase. Clarendon Street in San Francisco is what my father used to call, “a good street to know.” It takes you to the Haight without driving down Lincoln, and can also get you to Market Street by avoiding Portola. Before GPS, Clarendon felt like a secret. I often drive this route, and whenever I pass the park, I think about how I’ve never climbed those stairs, and wonder what it’s like at the top. Sometimes I consider pulling over but never do.

My daughter repeats her question. “Why don’t we remember everything?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I think our brains deci—”

“I mean, why don’t our brains just store everything and then we can just look something up when we want to?” She rests her foot on the dashboard. “It wouldn’t feel like we’d have all this packed information in our brains, but,” she pauses, “it would be there if we needed it.”

“Some people have photographic memories and can remember what they had for breakfast three years ago.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.”

We drive in silence for a little while, and pass the street where our friends used to live before they moved to Marin to escape the fog. Today it is foggy and cold. We have just come from volunteering at Muttville, the dog rescue organization with the endless stream of stray Chihuahuas and free donuts. In the past six months, since moving back from Perth to San Francisco, we have, surprisingly, become a dog family, fostering and volunteering. I keep wanting to write about how fostering dogs is our therapy, but the fact that taking care of others helps you take care of yourself is not rocket science, so there’s not much else to say about that.

“I don’t remember much before fourth or fifth grade,” I tell my daughter, who is now staring out the window.

“Don’t you have a memory from kindergarten about how you got in trouble when you switched the inks in the markers?”

“Oh yea, that’s right.”

We are now six blocks from home, in traffic. The traffic is also something I will never write about because the only thing more boring than talking about traffic is writing about it. But I remember when San Francisco was less crowded, less expensive, with much fewer headphones. And coming home after nearly four years abroad is like moving in with an ex-boyfriend. You know why you fell in love with him, but you’re not sure you want to see him every day.

“I guess we don’t remember everything because we don’t need to,” I say, squinting and lowering the visor. The sun is setting. “But we might. Someday. That’s my point.” She picks up some dog hair from her black leggings.

Tomorrow I will drive up Clarendon after work and, for the first time, stop at the park. I will climb the uneven staircase, in heels, to finally see what’s up there. At the top of the hill, a dirt path will lead me to a bright green bench overlooking the city. The bench is in memory of someone named Lily
Allen-Hughes, and I will sit down, close my eyes, and listen to the traffic. I
will make a new memory that I will share with my daughter, who will  safely store it for me, in her wonderful mind.

When putting a diaper on a dog, it is important to first pull its tail through the hole. Otherwise, you will find yourself in the position of jamming two fingers through a tiny opening in the diaper and then grasping the tail in bemusement. After all, a dog’s tail is an extension of its spine, full of bones and muscles and nerve endings, and how on earth can you force a spine to curl and fit through a hole? You cannot.

Once the tail is through the hole, you have approximately two seconds to reach between the dog’s legs and pull each of the tabs up and around the belly to secure the Velcro. The dog can easily wriggle out of the diaper if it is not fitted properly, so get those tabs in place as soon as possible. Dogs are quick, even the old ones with bum legs. They don’t want to wear diapers. Who can blame them.

The dog diaper must be tight, otherwise the urine will seep out the sides. If you have taken care of a person in diapers, you know tighter is better. If you ask yourself, is the diaper tight enough, it is not, and you will discover this later, after a day at work or a night of sleep. Only when you say to yourself, perhaps this diaper is too tight, then you know it is tight enough.

Dog diapers look just like human diapers, except for the tail hole. They come in bright colors and have names like Simple Solution and Paw Legend. They can be tossed in the wash, and air-dry quickly.

If you can help it, try not to get sad when you see a dog wearing a diaper. Of course you cannot control your feelings, but if you are the kind of person who can coax your feelings into a general category, I suggest storing them under Humor (“How funny! A dog in a diaper!”), or, Miracles of Human Invention (“How lucky we are that someone invented a doggie diaper!”).

First thing in the morning, check the diaper. Do this outside if possible. Rip away the Velcro tabs and hold the diaper in one hand, away from your face. The weight of the diaper will suggest the level of activity. Although you might be tempted, do not smell the diaper to check for urine. There is no reason to do this.

If the diaper is dry, say something encouraging to the dog like, “Good job! I knew you could do it!” If the diaper is heavy with pee, it is best not to say anything at all. This is not the time for humiliation.

Stay outside with the dog for a while to air out the bottom, and to encourage outside pee time. Feel the cool morning breeze. Listen for birds. Try and imagine what the dog is thinking. If you are fostering this dog, think about its many days leading up to this one. Its mysterious life that you will never know. Briefly entertain the notion that you and this dog were meant to find each other, and then remember you think that about everyone. Look up at the sky. Sometimes calling out, “Good morning world!” can help put a smile on your face, and you forget for a split second that you are holding a diaper made for a dog. A dog that is doing the best it can.

Karim will arrive in four minutes. My phone tells me he is driving a Tesla with the license plate NEWCAR.

The car is quiet, black, and shiny and there are no plates. As it pulls up, the window lowers, revealing a man with a black moustache and white polo shirt. He smiles and explains how to open the door. I push on the left side of the shiny rectangular metal piece and the right side pops forward.

Resting against the leather seat, I think of the day I once sat in a Batmobile, one of the actual cars from one of the Michael Keaton movies. A family friend collected cars, including a James Bond one. We arrived for Thanksgiving dinner to find the Batmobile in the driveway. Soon after, my dad bought a vintage British taxi with a rear-facing bench backseat.

I am not a car person. In Australia, I drove a used SUV for two years before a young child asked me what kind of car I drove and I realized I had no idea. At this moment, I think it was a Mitsubishi but I would not bet my life on it. Now I drive a Honda because I insisted we buy one. Ten years ago, a Honda saved my life in a head-on collision by releasing its air bags and folding like an accordion. I walked out of that accident with a tiny bruise on my nose. Maybe I am a Honda person.

“Nice car,” I say to Karim, as he speeds toward Dewey Boulevard. He just bought it and tells me it’s a Model 3. “Well it’s really nice,” I say again, checking my phone. I am on my way to meet two friends for dinner. “The ceiling is all glass,” Karim says. Isn’t it though, I want to say, cracking a feminist joke. But I stay quiet and look up to see twinkling stars where I would normally see car. It is exquisite. I ask permission to take a photo to send to my husband. I am in a Tesla Model 3, I text Dave. I do not hear back. He is away with friends for the weekend, kayaking and drinking wine and not caring about what sort of car his wife is sitting in.

Karim presses something on the large touchscreen attached to the dashboard, and tells me he lost $2.7 million in the stock market in 2008. I tell him I’m sorry and that must have been hard. He tells me it was awful, that I have no idea, and then says, “Too bad we’re not going on the highway because I would turn on Self-Driving.”

We talk about the Salesforce tower lighting up like the Eye of Sauron on Halloween and he asks if I’m going out to dinner. I tell him I’m meeting two friends I’ve known since sixth grade. He tells me friends are the most important thing in this life, while driving fifty-two miles per hour down Clipper Street, past red and white signs that say, Drive like your children live here.

Karim pulls over in front of the tapas restaurant and shows me how to open the car door from the inside. I have arrived before my friends so I sit on a bench outside and look up at the sky. I live in a city where an Uber driver owns an electric self-driving robot machine and thousands of people petition for a skyscraper to light up like a Tolkien fairytale. I hear screaming and turn around to see a toddler throwing a tantrum in the middle of the sidewalk.

Movers haul things in and out of trucks, carry bookcases up and down stairs, tear open boxes, and unload books and teacups and ukuleles and tiny ceramic figurines, all while handling the emotions and nitpicky preferences of their clients. I have lived in four countries, and never cease to be impressed by the sheer perseverance and strength of professional movers.

In every moving crew, there is the person who is responsible for taking things apart, and putting things back together. He doesn’t spend as much time in the truck or on the stairs, because he is camped out in the living room or in a bedroom, with a bag of screws, a drill, and zero instructions.

Last Friday, at my house, this person was Antoine, a thin muscular man in a black sleeveless top and a slight limp due to a recent fracture.

I last saw Antoine four years ago, unscrewing table legs and bedposts, preparing to move all of our furniture to Perth. My daughters, then seven and nine, stood at the doorway to their bedroom and watched him take apart their bunk bed. He joked with them about Australia, and told them to keep an eye out for boxing kangaroos.

On Friday, all of our belongings came back from Perth, and with them, Antoine. “It’s you!” I exclaimed, opening the door. I was happy to see this man who was so helpful to us in a time of transition. “I remember this place,” he said, wiping his feet on the welcome mat. “Nice view. Can you see them from here?”

“Who?”

“The Blue Angels.” Antoine was not feeling particularly nostalgic. He rushed over to the living room window and looked out, past the cypress tree. I told him they usually fly over Twin Peaks, so yes, perhaps later that afternoon we would see them.

“He’s obsessed,” said Antoine’s boss, showing the crew around our house. “He wants to fly planes,” said the big guy with the star tattoo on his neck. “Too bad he’s stuck here with us,” said the little guy with the black glasses and backwards baseball cap. They all laughed.

Within the hour, our front patio was filled with boxes marked Artwork, Bedframe 2, Kids Toys. My husband suggested they get the rugs first. Star Tattoo carried an eight-by-ten rug over his shoulder like it was a foam pool noodle. “Where do you want it?”

I showed him downstairs, and he rotated the roll and flopped it on the floor. I stared at his inked neck and thought of The Sneetches. He pulled a razor out of the front pocket of his jeans and sliced the plastic wrapping expertly, as if fileting a fish. Antoine followed us and took a peek. “It’s blue,” he announced and then cocked his head. “Did you hear that?” I reminded him the Blue Angels don’t start flying until the afternoon. Star Tattoo rolled out the rug. “That’s good right there,” I told him, and he headed upstairs to help bring in a couch. I knelt on the rug and leaned down to take a whiff, hoping to smell something, anything, from Australia. Eucalyptus, or bush fire, or maybe grilled sausage. It smelled like a rug. The song “Nothing” from A Chorus Line popped in my head. And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul to see what I had inside. 

The men carried six enormous boxes downstairs, all labeled Bunk Bed. Antoine ran to the foot of the stairs to help and the small guy with the baseball cap said, “Thanks, that was awesome.” Without missing a beat, Antoine snickered, “I’ve heard that before.” The guys groaned like they heard that joke daily. The boss called me ma’am and said he had been unwrapping a tall box upstairs and discovered a spider clinging to the floor lamp, a castaway from Australia. “Scared the shit out of me,” he said. “Give me anything but spiders.”

I watched Antoine put together the bunk bed. I admired the gentle way he handled each wooden slat, applying pressure to each one after it was in place, testing its resilience.

Recently I received an email from an American friend considering a job in Australia. He asked if it’s worth it, the enormous effort of leaving the familiar, the challenge of taking kids out of their comfort zone. I wrote him back in all caps, DO IT, and later I felt that I should have added something about the fact that you’re never completely alone. That there is a world of people out there, holding you up, helping reconstruct your life after you have disassembled it.

I asked Antoine how he landed this particular role with his moving crew. He said he has always loved taking things apart, and especially putting them back together. “Ever since I was a kid,” he said, with screws hanging out of his mouth. “It’s such a sense of satisfaction.” I told him I understood. He looked at the ceiling and said, “Do you hear something?”