First day of the rest

For seventy-five dollars (twelve and a half percent of what I paid),
I leave my dress with a younger bride and drive away.
Ascending the hill, I wait for the sadness. At the crest, it catches up.
But with it comes the sight of this open road ahead,
unexpected December sunshine,
blue sky and white clouds all the way to the horizon.
I am wearing barn jeans and a comfy sweater.
The steering wheel feels good in my hands.  

SHAME

It is an hour and a half past lunch
when I realize that I didn't steal food.

It isn't the unplundered buffet table
that draws tears near,
nor the empty pockets in my backpack
that could easily have harbored bread
and those little packets of mayonnaise
that would have hardly taken up any space at all,
that would have been easy for kind others
to pretend they didn't see.

No,
It is the hour and a half, the unscrutinized assumption
that there will always be more food,
that opportunities can be ignored,
that pockets can be empty for no better reason
than a lack of attention and a busy schedule.

It is the ninety minutes I spent ignorant
of everything I've ever learned the hard way.

Mind your Bus-ness, Part II

More bus letters. I wish these were fake.

Dear Bus Driver,

That stop sign jumped out from nowhere, did it? Tricksey, those stop signs.

Could you hand me my stomach? I think it's on the floor under the fare box.

Thanks,
Sarah

 

 

 

 

Dear Incessantly Whistling Guy on the Bus,

I'm glad you're happy.

I'm glad that taking the 7 a.m. to Milton, with its chronic overcrowding and its unusual odor this morning that I'm trying not to examine too closely, makes you happy. I'm glad that crowding elbow-to-elbow with strangers on a bus that navigates Route 60 like a raft on rapids fills you with cheer.

You know what fills ME with cheer?

Peace and quiet on the freakin' SEVEN A.M. TO MILTON.

Shhhhhhh,
Sarah

 

 

 

 

Dear Bus Driver,

You are now the hero not only of myself, but of the ten horses you rescued from a late breakfast. Thank you for recognizing the distant bobbing of a 32-ounce John Deere coffee mug in your rearview mirror as what it was: a cry for help. Less heroic drivers have told me that stopping in the middle of the block is forbidden, so I appreciate you making the exception. And I appreciate that when I arrived on your bus, gasping for breath, hair askew, holding my too-loose jeans up with the hand not already gripping, essentially, a full-sized coffee pot, you only smiled mildly and waved off my thanks.

I know you've seen worse. I've written many of them letters.

Still, I'm sorry you had to see that.

Love,
Sarah

 

 

 

 

Dear Transit Authority,

Sending one of your smaller buses on the Number 2 route between the hours of 8 and 3 on a rainy weekday is like setting up a game of Tetris, if Tetris pieces had sharp elbows and carried wet umbrellas, and if, when a line filled up, instead of disappearing, it just sat there, squirming and glaring, smelling of value brand deodorant and cigarette smoke.

Please send a larger game board.

Squished,
Sarah

Dear Guy on the Bus,

You are pretty sure you look tough, watching us from under your beanie, silently mouthing along with whatever badass music is playing on that iPod.

Dude. We can hear your music. We know it's Pink.

I love you,
Sarah

 

Bus Chronicles, Part I

I used to ride the city bus a lot.


It was kinda scary. And somewhat amusing. But mostly scary. To keep myself amused and distracted during my forays into the colorful world of public transportation in a small West Virginia city, I wrote letters to my fellow passengers and to the drivers whose mercy we were riding on. Here are a few of those:

Dear Bus Driver,

You missed your calling. The way you welcome us aboard and inform us of our route and eventual destination, I half expect you to recite our cruising altitude and share with us the local time and temperature at the Eastern Heights Save-a-Lot.

But just so you know, we're not actually supposed to go airborne.

Bring us in for a safe landing, buddy.

Best,
Sarah

 

 

Dear Bus Driver,

When you ask the passengers for directions, my heart sinks a little.

When you bypass a stopped police car by going the wrong way on a one-way street, my heart sinks a little more. Guess the helpful passenger who supplied detour directions forgot that little detail.

I swear, some days getting to work is like playing Grand Theft Auto: City Bus Edition.

Miraculously Still on Time for Work,
Sarah

 

 

Dear Lady in the Next Bathroom Stall at the Bus Station,

Well, that was the most unnecessarily specific answer I have ever heard anybody give when someone on the phone asks, "What are you up to?"

Could have just said, "Not much." Although apparently that would have been a lie.

Best of luck,
Sarah

Dear Creepy Guy at the Bus Stop,

Let me help you by providing you with a "Does the Nice Lady at the Bus Stop Want to Talk to You" checklist.

Is the nice lady at the bus stop me?  YES ___  NO ___

If you checked "yes," then she doesn't want to talk to you.

Best,
Sarah

Dear Dad on the Bus,

You are awesome. Kid struggles to ring the stop bell, you give it a stealthy tug. Kid reaches blindly for his hood, out of sight behind his neck, you lift it secretly into his reach. Kid fights to drag half his body weight worth of bookbag down the bus steps, you sneak a finger under the strap to make it lighter. That kid can do anything, thanks to you.

Love,
Sarah

 

 More to come ...

Dear Teacher, please excuse Sarah from blogging. She was busy falling (apart, and also down). Insert forged signature here.

So, here's what happened.

Well, not all of it. I don't feel like talking about the Thanksgiving divorce or the lonely Christmas or the creepy spinster attic apartment or the hours spent learning how to decoupage, which are the root reasons I haven't been blogging. You just do not need to know all of that. It's possible I lived on little else but tea and honey and Kleenex and Brandie Carlisle songs for over a month, and it's not something I'm proud of.

 But I do feel the need to at least make an attempt at explaining why I have completely neglected everything writing-related, including but certainly not limited to this blog. So what I will tell you is that, back in April, I pretended to be Superman. That isn't to say that I jumped into a phone booth and popped out wearing tights and a save-the-world expression. No. What I did was, I attempted to run. Tripped. And sailed into the air like I knew how to fly.

What I didn't know how to do was land, so I came down full-force on my right knee, on a floor that is nothing more than thin carpet over concrete. And of course, being the super-sharp thumbtack that I am, I hopped right back up and kept running. It wasn't until twenty minutes later, cutting my pantleg up the seam to reveal a right knee roughly the size and color of a rotten cantaloupe that I realized: Crap.

Seven weeks, one surgery, one obnoxious knee immobilizing brace, and the development and frequent employment of a colorful vocabulary later, I still can't do a straight leg raise, or, more importantly, kick people. And, boy, oh boy, are there people I would like to kick. Namely, myself, for forgetting that I am not graceful enough to run, for any reason, ever.

My weirdo friends keep asking to see the photos, so I'm going to share them.Warning: the link you are about to click on is extremely gross!


 WARNING: Here be yucky-looking kneecaps!


That's where we are now -- seven weeks post-injury, four weeks post-op, and scheduled for a second MRI and an EMG to figure out why I still can't perform a straight leg raise -- or, as I've mentioned, kick people.

So that's what happened. And between surgery, recovery, and having to move out of my now-inaccessible creepy spinster attic apartment, I haven't been writing a whole lot. But I have collected all sorts of medical terms and unsettling hospital observations and weird nurse characterizations and colorful sailor vocabulary to use when I do get back to it!
 

Also, here's a completely unrelated classified ad (cue innocent hum):

WANTED: Someone I don't like. Your job duties would consist of standing in front of me until my right leg remembers how to kick. Volunteer position, no pay. Would look kick-ass on a resume. ;)

A few more stones

1/5 - End of every good day, we sweep the stable, hay and mud chased out the barn door, where at dusk we will forget not to walk through it, track it onto our neglected kitchen floors.

1/6 - In the gray, cool, dead-grass, damp-air, January meadow, one yellow flower whispers, "Bright things can grow here. Wait."

Mindful Writing Challenge (Small Stones)

January is the month of the Mindful Writing Challenge, and although I have been absent from this blog for some time, I have been picking up my small stones. I'll try to post them daily going forward, but here they are so far:


1/1/13 - Down the block, I hear fireworks and car horns honking. The dog flicks one ear. The cat twitches her whiskers. I pull up the covers.


1/2/13 - Cold sunset shines off the ice in hoofprint puddles. Anywhere this is true, I fit.


1/3/13 - She scratches blue ink on a page full of numbers, compares the sum to bills crunched in her fist. Adding three hundred, but counting just two. Over and over and over.


1/4/13 - He grips my fingertips, frustrated to the core. His handshape familiar, I flip my own hand to meet his, declare thumb war. His eyes raise to mine, smile, marvel: Teacher's lost her marbles.