The Strangeness of Safety

Mother was on the phone yesterday, talking to a cousin who was calling to check on us from California, and she told him essentially that we were worried for our Houston and San Antonio family and friends, but sad for the Corpus Christi area because that was our second home.

Me and Snoopy, a lovable mutt who liked chasing cars a bit too zealously, at Bird Island (by Padre Island) in 1979.

Technically, that's true for her, but not quite for me. For me, Corpus Christi was my first home; we moved there from when I was an infant and my memories of Houston come from when we returned in 1981. It's that part of the state that gives me the warm feeling of home whenever I pass through it--when I reach that point where the land flattens out  and the fields of summer wheat and cotton fan outwards in perfect strips of bronze or green toward the coast, the gulls circle overhead, and you can feel the salt hanging in the air. That, to me, is home. It was there that we rode out Hurricane Allen, as I recounted in April.

Me in the summer wheat on our property outside Sinton, 30 miles west of Corpus Christi.

Of course, my time in South Texas was longer than Mother's because I came back every summer (and for shorter visits in college and after) to visit my father, who continued to live in the area after Mother and I moved back to Houston. It is also more recent, because the kids and I visited Port Aransas and Mustang Island just last month, their first trip to the beaches where I grew up.

Betty on the beach in Port Aransas, July 2017

For several years, Dad lived in our old house outside Sinton. Dad worked first as a welder at his shop in Corpus Christ's north side, near the refineries, welding everything from water tanks to custom bolts to the above-ground pool at our old house in Corpus. My poem about spending days in the shop watching him work appeared in the Summer 2017 issue of Illya's Honey.

Later, he got a job as a carpenter for Villers Seafood Company, which operated a fleet of shrimp boats out of Aransas Pass in the summers (and Ft. Meyer's Beach, FL in the winters). I became familiar with the docks in Aransas Pass, the VillCo boats chugging in and out, Dad's tiny tool shop, the sluices where the shrimp boats emptied the catch out of their holds for rinsing. I wrote about the Brown Bag #2, Dad's favorite watering hole, on my friend Susan Rooke's blog last September.

Dad on the docks where he worked.

Usually once a summer we went to Rockport, the next town up the coast from Aransas Pass, for a special dinner at the legendary Charlotte Plummer's Seafare, although by the last few years of his life, Dad had gotten extremely picky about his seafood (after years of getting it fresh off the boat) and just cooked it himself. I remember the beach shops in Rockport, painted brightly, using pocket money to buy sea shells, then feeling fancy, sitting down to eat at Charlotte Plummer's, picture windows and cloth napkins, iced tea and fried seafood.

I remember, too, crossing to Port Aransas on the ferry, hoping for dolphins. One time we got there early and I saw on the deserted beach thousands of living sand dollars, green and fuzzy, scattered on the beach, so many it was overwhelming.

I remember, too, helping my dad build a pair of houses in Aransas Pass. On wall-raising day, his shrimper friends no-showed (not unexpected; it was a Saturday, when most shrimpers are hung over) and he and I raised the walls ourselves, just the two of us. He pulled his van under the house, which was just stilts and a slatted floor, then hoisted the first wall onto the roof of the van. I climbed up the van and onto the 2x4's, balancing carefully, trying not to look down through the slats). He pushed the wall up and I (a 19-year-old English major with no upper body strength) had to balance, 12' off the ground, holding the wall in place while he anchored it to the base of the structure.

Of course, many of you who've never been to South Texas now know these places, too--Corpus Christi, Port Aransas, Rockport, Aransas Pass--from watching the news this week of Hurricane Harvey, which took aim at them all (punched them in the nose, to paraphrase Rockport's mayor), shredding the coastal towns with violent wind, rain, and storm surge.

After moving to Houston, Mom and I went through Hurricane Alicia, and my friends and I waded through drowned intersections and peered over into the drainage ditches. As an adult, I experienced Rita and Ike. I've been in Austin now for eight years, and it still feels strange to see a hurricane coming for Texas. I have a deep need to react, to prepare. My mental checklist gets activated and it makes me a little anxious, like the primitive part of my brain, the instinct that knows hurricanes and how you prepare for them, is at war with the rational part that knows a hurricane in Austin is really mostly just wind and rain, that we live on a hilltop in a sturdy house, that this one isn't my battle to fight. It's hard, though, because the presence of a hurricane makes me restless and itchy to do something, even when there's nothing to do.

"I need to gas up the car!" screams the primitive brain. "Okay, fine," soothes the rational brain with a hint of exasperation. "You'll need gas next week anyway. We'll get gas."

"Grocery store!" whines the primitive brain. "Sigh. Okay, but we're just shopping for Monday and Tuesday dinner here. NO STOCKPILING NON-PERISHABLE ITEMS," retorts the rational brain sternly. The primitive part sneaks a few staples into the cart.

"Secure the back yard," pleads the primitive brain. "Really?" the rational brain snickers, "For what? But, whatever. Pick up the wind chimes and the hammock and go inside, dammit!" The primitive part stacks the chairs neatly under the patio and tucks the potted plants against the wall and, mysteriously, curls up the garden hose and tucks it behind a bush.

So we stayed inside (minus a Saturday lunchtime fried chicken run, which felt absolutely scandalous to the primitive brain, which was still irrationally worried about unboarded windows) and watched the news and felt helpless, worried about the people we love and the places we've called home. I've Googled locations, but of course the odds are low that I'll find a post-Harvey picture of Bird Island, or the summer wheat fields outside Sinton, or the Brown Bag, or the docks, or the house at A-1 Hill Road.

I hope they're all still there, or will be again. I hope that the many other people who love those places and call them home are alive and safe and that they will return someday and make the Gulf Coast once again the place that lives in my memories, in my heart. In the meantime, I'll be here, strangely safe, the primitive part of me irrationally amazed that I have electricity, that our fence is up and our patio cover securely attached and the continuous (yet mostly gentle) rainfall is running safely downhill to Brushy Creek.

Love and blessings to all of you on the coast, and those in Houston whose ordeal is just beginning.

A poem from my newest poetry project:

                                Remnants

Aransas summers spent dawdling suntanned on Villers' docks,

watching Dad nurse shrimp boats, welding and fiberglass,

binding barnacled hulls to secure rough men for rough work:

machinery buzz, seagull holler sounds; dead fish salt smells.

Rockport, a rare treat, more refined: crisp lawns, painted shops,

white houses, solid St. Augustine: manicured, mannered charm.

While the Gulf silently nibbled at bulkheads, feigning tameness.

Soda: It's Not Just for Decorating

So yesterday I started the day in a burst of productivity. I swept, dusted, and steamed the floors in the entire house. I even stopped procrastinating and put the rug grippers I'd gotten from Amazon a month ago onto the slippery rug in the entry way. It took a couple of hours, but the house was gleaming. Even Eleanor's room, which generally requires a rake, shovel, and wheelbarrow to traverse safely, was clean and organized. 

After Mother and I went to the Georgetown Library, I braved the grocery store, so that I could be done with errands. I came home with half a dozen reusable tote bags full of groceries, plus a 12-pack of Sangria soda to celebrate the end of summer. (The kids find it amusing that HEB sells a booze-flavored non-alcoholic drink. Although it is essentially carbonated fruit punch, they feel slightly rebellious when drinking it.) 

Now, it's Texas, it's summer, and it's 4:00 p.m. It feels like Satan's sauna. I can practically feel my produce wilting, my milk curdling, and my chicken sprouting salmonella in the trunk.

And no matter how hard I try to convince myself that, really, it's okay to make multiple trips into the house--it is not okay to make multiple trips out of the house. I sling all six bags over my left shoulder, grab the Sangria soda in my right hand and lurch, rather unsteadily, up the hill to the front door, which, at least, I've left unlocked for myself. 

I step up into the hallway. With my left foot in the air, the half dozen grocery bags give a little lurch. I put my foot down in a hurry and my weight shifts to the left. My right shoe goes up, but not far enough, and gets caught under the rug. The rug that I have just affixed rug grippers to, so that it doesn't move. Despite the 69 one-star Amazon reviews, it actually doesn't move.

If you're wondering, they work.
Entirely too well.

So, I'm precariously balanced, leaning, lurching and my foot is now caught under a persistently gripped rug. There's only one way this is going.

Down. It's going down.
Except, this cat is going to land gracefully on its feet.

Fortunately, the Sangria sodas broke my fall. I'll let you think about that one for a minute.

Sangria sodas. 

Broke my fall.

Remember back in the 80s, there was that comedian, Gallagher, whose shtick was that at some point in his show, he'd hit a watermelon with a sledgehammer and everybody in the first three rows got drenched in watermelon bits? It was pretty much like that. 

Because of the six bags in my left hand, my entire weight fell on my right hand. The soda carton slowed my fall and probably kept me from breaking my wrist, but the resulting impact created a lovely fuchsia splatter. All over my clothes. Pooling on the floor. Under the rug with its still-firmly-attached rug grippers. Three feet up every wall and the front door.

On the outside of the front door.
The soda eruption was so intense it violated the laws of physics
by spraying both the inside and outside of the same door.

So, after unpacking and then wiping down every grocery item and grocery bag, putting my clothes in the washer, taking a shower, washing the walls and door, and remopping the floors everywhere I walked doing those things, I asked Mother if the rug was washable, and it turns out she was pretty meh about the rug. Just trying to take off the rug grippers made the backing disintegrate. So it went into the trash, brand new rug grippers and all. Thus fully negating much of the morning's accomplishments.

And then we had a good laugh. For one thing, nothing else in any grocery else broke or shattered. Not even Betty's drinkable yogurt or the salsa. Not even the nectarines got bruised, and you can bruise a nectarine by picking it up, purchasing it, or even staring harshly at it.

Beyond that, though, I felt blessed. Weird, right? No, I feel blessed a lot, on an almost daily basis. For those of you who didn't spend much time with me six years ago, I slipped in the bathroom and fell, twisting my knee. I didn't have the resources to deal with it, so the knee injury chased the tail of an Achilles injury and after three years or so, I could barely walk. I couldn't stand more than a minute without wanting to collapse. I had to haul myself to my feet, then I'd stand there, holding on to something stable until I felt I could walk. My maximum shopping trip was two stores. I walked down stairs sideways, crablike, and hauled myself up them with the rail. A friend told me not too long ago that he'd felt guilty for inviting me to go out with them because I was clearly in so much pain. 

Since I finally (through a generous, and quality-of-life saving, gift from Mother) went through the (agonizingly, worse than a c-section painful) Airrosti therapy process and then continued building strength on my own, I can do many things I couldn't do, but I don't take any of them for granted. When I stood up and gave a presentation for an hour a couple of years ago, some staff came up afterwards and asked if I was okay because I looked a little flushed. And I had been thinking, "WOW! I just stood up! For an hour! THIS IS AWESOME!" I took the kids to SIX stores this tax-free weekend and then we went swimming. Every time I get in the car, I remember that a few years ago I had to use my hands to lift my legs into the car. And, when I fell yesterday, I got up. On my own. On the first try. Rather easily. And, yeah, I'm a little stiff--but I can move. Even though it's been a few years now since I finished Airrosti, every day something happens to remind me how far I've come and how blessed I truly am. Yesterday, oddly enough, it was pulverizing three cans of soda and walking away.

Jeeves, Search the Rolodex!

As I may have mentioned (I can't remember), my memory is not the greatest. Not because of anything particularly concerning, like blunt force trauma from a falling piano or targeted brain cell attacks from an irradiated porcupine, but mainly because my brain just doesn't work right. There is definitely the attention span problem (also know as the "crack addled squirrel in my brain"), but there is also a memory processing error.

If something actually makes it past short-term memory, it's there forever. Unfortunately, much like sex, many more bits of information get launched in the direction of my brain than ever complete the journey, if you know what I mean. Kind of like wearing a brain condom. It's particularly bad with names, but also books, movie plots, entire conversations, and something like 90% of junior high (which is probably not a bad thing--I have the general impression that it sucked). One reason I resisted Facebook for so long is the awkwardness of making small talk with people who remember more about me than I do.

Childhood BFF: "Remember that epic time we hung out all day long, and went to the mall, and spent the night, and threw produce at the band director's car, and ran screaming down Beamer wearing bikinis and shaving cream?"

In some ways, it's like the rest of the world comes installed with the latest iPhone while I'm still using a Rolodex. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that, during my 17 years with my current employer, I've worked in every department but budget and IT (if the State ever puts me in charge of either money or computers, we can be confident that it is a sign of some sort of apocalypse, probably involving goats in pajamas), and I've worked on the kind of projects that have introduced me to a lot of people. On a daily basis, people wave and say, "Hi, Diana," and I have to smile and wave while my brain frantically whispers to my little brain butler to spin through the Rolodex.

If you're wondering, the Rolodex is not organized alphabetically, because I can't remember your name. It's organized by where I met you. Obviously, this is significantly less reliable. Sometimes, I never make it past the smile-and-wave, and then, hours later, the Rolodex comes to a sudden stop and I go, "OH! You work in the SSLC Division....<pause>...Your name is Freda!" Which is not usually helpful, particularly if I'm talking to someone else at the time.

It made workgroup meetings a bit like
"Groundhog Day," except that whether or not
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, I was
never, ever, ever going to remember her name
until the last 10 minutes of the meeting and
it was always going to be a complete surprise.

There was a six-month workgroup this spring where EVERY SINGLE MEETING I would look at this one particular woman for the entire two hours, frantically trying to remember who she was. And then, usually about ten minutes before the end of the meeting, my brain would go: "Sunset Project! You're the DSHS lady! You're Carolyn! I liked you!" I am reasonably sure I never said any of that out loud, inasmuch as they kept inviting me to the meetings, but the remarkable thing was, I never figured it out any sooner in the meeting, even by the sixth time.

Let's say a normal person gets on the elevator. There's one other person there, and, because they have a Smartphone Brain, they know who she is. The other person says, "Hi, Norma! It's Marsha's last day today. We're all meeting downstairs for lunch." And because the normal person knows who Marsha is, she goes, "Cool, Sally! Have fun!" They probably even make small talk the rest of the trip downstairs. I wouldn't know.

Here's what happened to me.

Person on elevator: Hi, Diana! It's Marsha's last day today. We're all meeting downstairs for lunch."

Me: <awkward pause> That's...good?
Followed by five floors of silence and a hasty exit by the other person.

Meanwhile in my brain, I've set my imaginary butler Jeeves to spinning the Rolodex.

Maybe THAT'S my problem! I have a cat brain butler! While I'm desperately
trying to make small talk with people I should know, Jeeves is licking his butt
or playing with laser pointers or chasing the crack-addled squirrel!

What I am NOT saying to the nice person on the elevator:

Who's Marsha? Is Marsha the lady who walked by a minute ago who looks familiar and says "hi" to me all the time, or is she someone else? Who *is* the lady who says "hi" all the time anyway, if she isn't Marsha? Do I know her from somewhere, or does she just look familiar because we use the same restroom, or is she just really friendly? Did I work with Marsha and you on some project? Also, who are you? The Rolodex says you're an attorney. Have worked on something together? Why do you know who I am and why do you think I know Marsha?

And then, thankfully, the elevator arrives at the first floor. I still don't know who the attorney is, or Marsha, but I hope she has a nice retirement.

So enjoy your super speedy indexed Contacts app brain, and its marvelous ability to pull up names, birthdates, spouses' names, and the entirety of sixth grade. I'll be over here dangling a fish on a string to get Jeeves to bring me that absolutely brilliant idea I had in that meeting on Friday and forgot to write down.