Nonfiction

The First Day Of The Year

The woman awoke to shrieking at half past six. Not anything to worry about, just the sound of four girls who had slept on single mattresses all lined up next to one another and were now awake, exhilarated by their closeness and exhaustion. Three out of the four had stayed up past midnight.

She got up from bed, untwisted her nightgown, and shuffled across the hall. “Girls, can you please keep it down? We’re still sleeping. Happy New Year.”

Remarkably they did quiet down and the woman fell back asleep and dreamed of a contraption that was half-oven, half-blender. She roasted beets on the top shelf of the oven and then pulled a lever to transfer them to the blender by way of a small conveyor belt.

A few hours later, she joined her husband and her friends upstairs for Earl Grey tea and banana bread. Her friends have a new puppy. It looks like a stuffed animal with black marbles for eyes. During breakfast, the puppy chewed on an actual stuffed animal.

After tea and clean teeth and sunscreen, the woman walked to the beach with her husband and her friends and the four girls and the puppy. They walked past empty houses that were built during the mining boom and deserted during the crash. The woman shooed flies off her face and laughed at the puppy who kept sitting down in protest.

The beach was called Pyramids. No one knew why it was called this, but they guessed it had something to do with the sand dunes or maybe the shape of the waves. They tossed their hats and towels in a pile and raced to the ocean, except for the one who stayed back with the puppy.

The woman jumped over the small waves and dove under the big ones. Surprisingly, some of the little ones are powerful, and some of the big ones are not.

It was time to say goodbye to the friends and the puppy and pack up the car and forget a few things. The woman’s husband put on a song for the drive home. The woman sang along, “We live in cities you’ll never see onscreen.” She fed her husband French fries from a drive-through chicken sandwich place. The children fell asleep and the woman and her husband talked about dolphins and how sometimes new friends feel familiar.

George Michael

I was grateful to hear my yoga studio was going to be open on December 25th. After tea and peanut butter toast, I drove through the ghost town that is many cities on Christmas morning. Hay Street in Perth is typically bustling with cafés and businesswomen in pencil skirts. But yesterday I drove down an empty street and parked easily out in front of the studio.

The class was packed. I asked a woman in neon orange leggings to scoot her mat forward.

The owner of the studio, a graceful, muscular woman with bright blue toenails, was teaching. After telling us to “get in whatever position feels most comfortable,” she started the class with a story about her father-in-law who had criticized her choice to keep the studio open on Christmas Day. “Sometimes people won’t understand why you do what you do,” she stated matter-of-factly without a trace of self-pity. “Move into downward dog.”

She worked us hard, and as we rolled up our mats, she put on the song “Last Christmas” by Wham!.

I sang it all the way home and was still singing when I walked in the front door.

“How was yoga?” my daughter asked. She was wearing a blue and white striped nightgown and playing with something called Thinking Putty, which is more expensive than Silly Putty because it’s smarter.

I serenaded her as I kicked off my flip-flops, “This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special.”

“Will you make me a smoothie?”

George Michael died hours later. I learned the news this morning from my friend Alex who texted me the “Careless Whisper” video with the comment, “End of an era.”

Alex and I went to high school together, when “Careless Whisper” was the last slow dance before the gym lights went on.

I spent this morning listening to Faith, alternating between crying and singing. My daughters took turns checking on me. “Mom, your face is red.” “Are all of his songs about love?”

Not all of George Michael’s songs are about love, but many of them are about sex, and when I was in high school, his music was just sexy enough for me. “I Want Your Sex” felt daring but polite. “Don’t you think it’s time you had sex with me?”

In college, I saw him perform at the Worcester Centrum near Boston. I went with a girl whose father was a gynecologist who sent her care packages in old Vagisil boxes. We sat in the balcony and screamed every time George Michael shook his butt.

This morning I finished crying and changed into my bathing suit for a family beach outing. Today is Boxing Day, and it is sunny and breezy. My daughter and I swam out past the break where we could bob up and down like marshmallows in hot chocolate. On the drive home, my husband plugged in his phone and played Faith. “I thought you’d want to hear it,” he said quietly. This touched me because Dave was more into Metallica in high school. Windows open, we blared “Father Figure,” about which my daughter declared, “This song is a little creepy.”

I guess it is creepy, but I love it. And sometimes people won’t understand why you do what you do.

Things That You Can Touch Or Feel

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In 1993, between bites of a piping hot dinner roll at Bertucci’s in Harvard Square, my father leaned across the table from me and declared, “When you marry someone, you marry their family.” He revealed this as if it were a carefully guarded secret that had been passed down from generation to generation.

I had been telling my dad about my boyfriend, specifically his mother, a clog-wearing woman who made her own earrings and often glared at me. My boyfriend and I broke up later that year. I still have a childhood blanket of his that my children sometimes use to build forts.

My husband comes from a large family. He has eight brothers and sisters, all of whom live on the east coast of the United States. Recently we pulled the kids out of school in Perth for three weeks and flew across the planet to drink Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in Rhode Island (medium, milk, one sugar). The last time we visited my in-laws was more than two years ago, when Dave’s youngest sister married a gregarious New Yorker with excellent taste in wine and cable knit sweaters.

The nine children and their assorted partners are a diverse lot. We are dentists, poets, accountants, stay-at-home moms, engineers, mail carriers, actors, economists, and students. We have strong opinions. Some of us drink eggnog coffee while others think this is a beverage for monsters. Some of us prefer cranberry sauce out of the can. Some of us believe in God. Some of us feel crushed by the recent presidential election and some of us are more ok with it. (Before our trip, I reminded my daughters that family is more important than politics, and the younger one suggested, “Maybe we don’t wear our Hillary t-shirts on Thanksgiving.”)

Several of the nine siblings have had children themselves, and the kids are just as varied. My eleven-year-old niece recently stood up to a bully at school, and my four-year-old niece likes to throw chairs.

There were 30 of us for Thanksgiving this year, and we descended on my sister-in-law’s house with side dishes and folding chairs. As casseroles slid in and out of the oven, and children chased each other up and down stairs, I felt like I was in a 90’s home-for-the-holidays rom-com. All that was missing was Bill Pullman.

After the feast and the cleanup, we put the little ones to bed, poured ourselves more sangria, and gathered in the living room for the most sacred of family traditions: Pictionary.

I have been playing Pictionary with my in-laws for more than 20 years. We are fiercely competitive. I was infuriated by my brother-in-law’s inability to draw a hot air balloon that looks anything like a hot air balloon, and he chided me for my attempt to illustrate “cold” without including a thermometer. (I drew a stick figure in shorts and then crossed it out.)

At one point, the newest spouse in the group, the gregarious fellow with the sweaters, became enraged by a teammate’s failure to quickly identify the “object” category on the Pictionary card and shouted, “Things that you can touch or feel!” His baptism was complete.

My dad was right of course. It’s no secret that when you marry someone, you gain a family. And if you marry someone who has lost a family member, you respectfully inherit this absence as well. I am honored to be part of this clan. It is one of the greatest blessings of my life. And I am not just saying this to score points. Unless we’re playing a game.

The Boy In The Backseat

On Friday afternoon in Perth, a family’s car was stolen from their driveway. I learned about it on Twitter. “Search is on for stolen blue Subaru with child inside.”

The parents had left the engine running while unloading the trunk. They had just returned from a vacation. The thief smashed the car through the front gate and sped off. Their three-year-old son was asleep in the backseat.

That day, I attended a middle school orientation with my daughter where, after locating her name on a whiteboard, she ran off to join her friends. Prospective students were given a tour and popsicles. Parents were corralled into a hot gym and told that the uniform shop is open on Mondays and Thursdays. I took a swig from my water bottle and thought about the boy in the backseat.

When my children were three and five, I left them in a car outside of a butcher shop in San Francisco. I was going to run in quickly to purchase some beef for a stew, and would see the car from inside the store. One of my daughter’s favorite songs was on the radio, “Say What You Need To Say” by John Mayer, and so I left the key in the ignition.

I returned to the car a few minutes later with a tenderloin wrapped in brown paper, and noticed a police car had parked behind me. I hopped in the front seat. John Mayer was done and some young female pop star was on. Within seconds, an officer knocked on my window. “Did you just leave your children in the car? With the key in there?” She must have heard the music.

“Yes. Just for a minute. Their favorite song was on.” I stopped talking.

The officer told me she was a mother and that there are crazy people out there. She suggested one of my children could have climbed up front and started the engine. I almost said my kids weren’t that smart but decided nothing about that was funny. She made me promise I wouldn’t do it again.

The blue Subaru was found parked in an alley two hours later, and, according to the parents, the child seemed unfazed and unharmed. The mother reported that he went straight back to pestering his sister. The thief has not been found. I wonder how long it took him to discover the boy, the moment he realized the thing he had set out to do had become something else.

We’re All Invested

I went to the U.S. embassy in Perth recently for an event billed as “a coffee and a chat with the Consul.” Joshua was delightful but may have been overshadowed by the silver machine in the corner. “Drip coffee!” the Americans exclaimed after leaving our belongings in lockers and walking through metal detectors. The Consul told us, “You can’t have a U.S. embassy without drip coffee,” while distributing stars and stripes ballpoint pens. (Australia has outstanding coffee but it is espresso-based, which explains all the good moods and early morning jogs.) I met a young mother in a green cable knit sweater who described the Republican VP candidate as “a good guy,” and a woman in a Bucky Badger sweatshirt with a Frances McDormand in Fargo accent. When she said, “I liked Bernie, but Hillary can be trusted with the nuclear codes,” I felt homesick even though I’m not from Wisconsin.

The U.S. presidential election is not something that is happening only to America, or only to Americans. The debates were broadcast live in Perth, on at least three channels, and were summarized in the evening news and local paper. A friend here was raised in Sweden and Spain and has lived in Australia for many years. She is troubled by the fact that many Americans don’t vote – voting is mandatory in Australia – and suggested, half-jokingly, that people in other countries should be able to cast their votes. “It’s the most powerful position in the world. We’re all invested.”

I went to a café in Swanbourne with the newspaper and a notebook, and sat next to three men huddled around a foot-long wooden boat perched on the table next to their flat whites. One of them had built the exquisite model and brought it to breakfast in the hopes that his friend could help him with the knots in the sail. As they fiddled with the parts, the builder, a tall fellow in a navy blue sweater vest, said, “But I suppose it’s true. America’s getting weaker and weaker and China’s getting stronger and stronger.”

The knot master frowned and removed his reading glasses. “But this bloke is going to build a wall?” The three of them erupted in laughter. He continued, “In America you’ve got this working poor where people have jobs but they just can’t afford to live. They’re angry, of course they’re angry. But there’s a huge number of people in America now who believe everything they see on telly. It’s scary.” They all nodded.

The third man added, “The phenomenon is not Trump himself, it’s why he’s getting so much support. He just tells them anything they want to hear. It’s totally illogical. Mexicans out! Muslims out! What about the bloody Europeans?” More laughter.

Calling anything a silver lining in this election reminds me of the college party where I ended up with a tube down my throat, overheard nurses whispering about “a waste of resources,” and then called my dad who asked me if it was good beer. But I must say, watching a smart woman patiently and strategically take down an ignorant chauvinist is good beer. I’m just annoyed she had to attend the party with this jerk in the first place.

When I walked my daughters to school this morning, the air looked dusty and smelled like burnt toast. Bushfires are common in Western Australia, especially in the spring when they are purposefully lit to avoid catastrophic blazes in the summer. When I first moved here and smelled fire, I was alarmed. The world was burning and no one was doing anything about it. But now I understand that the smoke soon clears and new growth begins.

What To Do While You’re Waiting

I am waiting for my cat to come home. He disappeared on Wednesday. Today is Friday. People say he’ll come home, that cats always come home. But maybe you should check local shelters, just in case.

I go to Cat Haven, which sounds almost like Cat Heaven. There is a mural on the side of the building with red hearts and smiling cats. I hand a photo to the lady with braces and brown hair. In the photo, Finn is stretched out on the couch, showing off his soft belly. The lady with braces and brown hair asks me questions. Yes he is microchipped. Yes this is out of character. I tell her I am treating this as if my child has disappeared which of course is a ridiculous thing to say and also not true. She says, “But he is your child.” I do not argue with her. She works at Cat Haven.

My friend Celena knows how hard this is. Her cat is named Boris and likes to sleep on top of the bookshelf. She posts flyers near the lake and calls Finn gorgeous which in Australia means enjoyable.

The neighborhood kids come over after school. I feed them Arnott’s biscuits with rainbow sprinkles and slices of apple. My older daughter distributes flyers, exactly 24 to each child, and goes over the plan. They will walk down Keightley to Hensman. They will stay together. They will be back in 40 minutes.

I make tea and check Lost Animals of Perth. A Maltese named Roxy was last seen on Parry Street. One Rainbow Lorikeet has been found, and another is lost. It is not the same one. This has been confirmed.

My phone rings. It is a woman with an Eastern European accent. She lives in the neighborhood and received a leaflet from a child, but she has not seen my cat. She loves all animals and will keep her eyes open.

I call the microchip company, located in Ontario. A woman named Sherri answers. Sherri’s job is to talk to people who have lost their pets. This is what she does all day. I give her Finn’s microchip number and she asks what the weather is like in San Francisco. I say I don’t know but it is raining in Perth, Australia and I’d like to make sure they have my correct phone number on file. I tell Sherri I will put Finn’s litter box outside, but not food because Sherri says it will attract other animals and from what she’s heard about Perth this is a real concern. Sherri has a friend in Perth. I tell her I’ve met several Canadians here, they like the weather.

At night, I promise the kids I will wake them if the cat returns. Dave and I are rewatching Friday Night Lights so we cue up the next episode. It is called, “What To Do While You’re Waiting,” the one where Smash needs to fold towels in the locker room as punishment for taking steroids. We talk about how kind people are in Perth, how much time people are willing to give. This lost cat reminds us why we love it here.

I dream that my cat comes home. As I pet him, he turns into a dog with the face of a man I don’t recognize. Where is he, where is he, where is he.

Three-Sentence Mysteries

There was a piece of steak in my chicken pie. It was not supposed to be there. The pie was called Chicken and Mushroom Pie.

I bought the pie at the Taylor Road IGA. IGA stands for Independent Grocers of Australia. The one on Taylor Road does not sell pepperoni and I often forget that.

Today I am wearing my Hillary t-shirt. On Tuesday I blocked emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign because I was angry that my t-shirt hadn’t arrived yet. On Wednesday my t-shirt arrived.

There is a woman in my needlepoint class who recently mentioned that she is 97 years old. My friend and I stared at each other in disbelief. Then we thought maybe she had said 79 but we’re not sure.

On the bathroom countertop is a small piece of metal. It is shaped like the outline of a rectangle with one side missing, a hurdle for a tiny track and field athlete. I found it on the bathroom floor two weeks ago and confirmed it is neither part of the sink nor toilet.

This piece of metal will remain on the counter for another week. Then it will be transferred to the junk drawer where it will join other unsolved metal bits. We won’t throw it away because we might need it someday.

I can’t tell the difference between two girls on my daughter’s hockey team. They look nothing alike but for some reason I always confuse them. This embarrasses me.

My ex-boyfriend’s mother was named Sue. It may have been Pam. I always confuse the names Sue and Pam.

A young child’s science project was entitled Is Anything More Sour Than A Lemon? She surveyed family members and found that limes are sourer than lemons. Sourer is the correct way of saying more sour but it doesn’t sound like it.

I bought new shoes last week. As I was removing my old shoes to try on the new ones, the strap on one of my old shoes broke. I had no choice but to buy new shoes.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi

“He’s consistent with his lifting in the snatch, but unpredictable in the clean and jerk.”

Lasha Talakhadze from Georgia is about to lift 258 kilograms and become an Olympic gold medalist. At the moment however, the Australian commentators are concerned about the weightlifter’s clean and jerk. (Naturally his snatch is not a worry.)

I love the Olympics, and they could not have come at a better time. Need a break from the madman running for office? Pole vaulting! Too cold and cloudy for you in the southern hemisphere? Synchronized diving! Our household is deeply committed. We are eating bowls of chili in front of the television and shouting at each other from across the house. “The Maasai Warrior is on! You can practice piano some other time!”

Australian coverage of the Olympic games is prioritized as follows: First, is there an Aussie in this event? If not, Equestrian. I have watched many horses jump over many things, and still my only question about this sport has not yet been addressed. How did all these horses get to Rio? Also, my husband would like to know why the humans get medals when “it’s the horses that do all the work.”

I miss the prepackaged mini-documentaries in the American coverage, where you get to know the pet store manager who lives down the street from a sprinter, and the mental health challenges faced by the goalie’s husband. In Australia, why learn more about an Olympian when horses can jump over log fences?

Here one asks, “Who are you going for?” and not, “Who are you rooting for?” which means something altogether different. My daughter and I were talking about a field hockey game between the United States and Australia. She asked me, “Did we win?” and I asked her who she meant by “we.” She responded, “Australia of course.” We’ve been living here awhile now.

I love the bodies, the tiny ones that flip over like green beans in a hot skillet and the big ones that throw the discus. I meditate on the human body’s potential while eating Tim Tams and checking my phone during the commercials. The other night I decided to leave wet clothes in the washing machine because I was too lazy to walk across the room. I made this decision as I watched the women’s 400-meter individual medley.

I used to have a job where I spent the entire year preparing for one annual event. I raised money, solicited volunteers, ordered supplies, and worked with the local police department to redirect traffic. After the event was over, I remember the juxtaposed feelings of pride and emptiness. I think about the competitors’ post-event thoughts, how they feel flying home from Rio or returning to their town in Brazil. All that preparation, over in a flash. What I’m saying is that I am exactly like an Olympic athlete.

He does it. Lasha Talakhadze lifts 258 kilograms, the combined weight of the Final Five gymnasts. It’s a new world record. He looks exhausted and electrified as the barbell crashes to the floor and he shakes his fists. I wonder what he’s going to do next.

All The Little Things

Winter turns Perth from a perky cheerleader into a goth girl smoking under the bleachers. Yesterday, I stepped in a deep puddle and had to slosh home to change my shoes. A white cockatoo nibbling on seeds in my neighbor’s driveway raised his head as if to say, “Loafers? Really?”

For most of the year, the city sparkles. Sunshine bounces off windows and sunglasses. The Swan River suggests the aftermath of a collision between two cargo ships transporting tinsel and sequins. But come July, things get dreary around here. The river darkens and the big Aussie sky hangs heavy with clouds. The stars, typically celestial exhibitionists, become painfully shy.

Rainstorms are frequent and severe. If heaven exists, all angels in the southern hemisphere are hard at work on an assembly line, tasked with dumping buckets of water onto their descendants. I frequently gather soccer balls, hula hoops, and Frisbees from the front patio so they don’t blow across the street. This makes me feel purposeful and foolish, like a Floridian refusing to evacuate. A lone kookaburra often perches on the telephone pole outside our kitchen window and shakes his feathers repeatedly.

One perk of all the rain is the prevalence of rainbows. When I see one, I always wonder about the first person who observed this marvel:

“Jerry, you’ll never believe what I saw this morning when I left the cave to collect more berries.”

“What did you see, my darling?”

“An enormous, colorful belt across the sky. It was there one minute and gone the next.”

“Stop messing with me, Darlene. What’s a belt?”

Today I had neither plans nor motivation, so I went to the beach. It was too cold and blustery for swimming, so I wrapped myself in a puffy coat, long scarf and a beanie. I looked like a Mongolian baby.

If you head west on Eric Street from Stirling Highway, you reach the top of a hill and then suddenly, the Indian Ocean is in front you, massive and turquoise. As I got closer to the coastline, I could see and hear the waves crashing. The water evidenced a dangerous and angry Mother Nature at the end of her rope.

The beach was free of humans but the water was not. At first I was shocked to see surfers, but then I remembered in Australia, people are either brave or foolish, depending on your perspective. Four daredevils were being thrashed about awfully close to the rock jetty that protrudes from Cottesloe Beach like a giant’s index finger. I could hear them hooting with either terror or glee, and as I walked down the beach clutching my scarf that was determined to fly out and join them, I kept an eye on those boys.

My thoughts, like rainbows or sudden gusts of wind, were there one minute and gone the next. I thought about bicycles and how I wished I enjoyed them more. I thought about my daughter’s tree costume, whale sharks, Pauline Hanson, and whether or not rooibos tea would taste good with almond milk. I thought about the French gymnast with the broken leg.

And then, standing on the beach watching the surfers, one thought consumed the others like a tsunami. What if I’m doing all the wrong things? As my eyes began to fill with tears, I heard a loud rumble and within seconds, it started to hail. I took off my glasses and stuck them in my coat pocket and began to stumble in the direction of my car. The ferocious wind pushed me sideways. I could taste salt water on my lips. I looked out to where the surfers had been just moments ago, but I couldn’t see through the storm.

I slammed the car door, tossed my soaked beanie on the passenger seat and peeled off the wet paper maché previously known as my scarf. I checked my phone and ate some almonds. There was no way I was driving in this storm and besides, I needed to see the surfers.

I turned on the radio. It was Etta James. “You smiled and then the spell was cast. And here we are in heaven, for you are mine at last.” I remembered when my young cousin sang this song at her Bat Mitzvah, and how shocked I was to hear such a big voice come out of such a small person.

Soon the rain stopped. I counted four surfers and drove home, grateful for all the little things and mystified by the big ones.

The Houseguest

This week we have a houseguest, a young American we met a few months ago while traveling in a remote region of Western Australia called Monkey Mia, which, despite its name, is home to dolphins not monkeys. Also, Mia is pronounced Maya.

Anna, pronounced Anna, is an actress and a waitress and a searcher. Her visit is perfectly timed. She has a Millennial ease about her that makes me feel like America is going to be all right because her generation believes in compassion and fewer weapons and equal rights, and it’s all a matter of time. She brought us clay face masks and sparklers.

“When will we see you again?” my husband asked Anna last night before we went to sleep after sharing a bottle of Shiraz and talking about Bernie Sanders and Gilmore Girls. He was missing her while she was still here, one of Dave’s hallmarks. I knew how he felt.

In the spring of 1996, Dave and I stayed in the London home of a couple we had met at a house party in Boston, six months earlier. This couple spent the party cuddling on a couch radiating romance and mystery, and we spent the evening trying to be more like them. Galina was Ukrainian and her purple bra strap peeked out from her loose fitting sweater. Christophe was French and wore leather and smelled of cigarettes. They unsuctioned long enough to tell us that they had just completed a cross-country drive on motorcycle. Of course they rode motorcycles. These were not the kind of people who were going to waste time in the safety and banality of cars. I was transfixed, and when they offered their home as a layover on our way to Ireland later that year, I promised we would come. Few of us were internetting back then, so for months, I kept Galina’s phone number on a slip of paper in my underwear drawer.

Looking back now, they probably thought we were adorable. We were both twenty-two and newly in love. Dave had graduated from college and was very skinny then in his gray turtleneck sweater and jean jacket. I had dropped out of college and used my Legal Seafood waitressing money to buy my first pair of Doc Martens. We had only recently upgraded our multi-year friendship to what Australians would describe as full on. The trip to Ireland had been Dave’s idea. He had never traveled outside the U.S. and wanted to see his maternal family’s homeland. His mother would suddenly pass away soon after our return and of course we didn’t know that then, so that trip holds particular significance for both of us.

Galina and Christophe were in their mid-thirties and their art-filled Hampstead apartment had a red crushed velvet couch and a vintage record player. Galina allowed her husband to smoke inside but only next to an open window. With Christophe perched on the windowsill and his wife reclined on the sofa sipping an aperitif, we spoke of philosophy and travel. Dave and I occasionally exchanged looks conveying we are most certainly in the company of grown-ups.

We never saw Galina and Christophe again, but I thought of them last night as I said goodnight to our houseguest and crawled into bed. I thought about all the different kinds of relationships we have with all kinds of people, and how we’re all floating through space, occasionally bumping into each other. Some people are like satellites to us, and others are shooting stars.