Expectations

I thought it would be different. There are a number of people traveling to Austin on the 6:20 flight this morning, more than I imagined as I drove through Hartford at four and pictured myself alone and waiting quietly in the terminal.

The man across from me wears snakeskin boots, but I am certain he is not a Connecticut line-dancing cowboy. His skin is too leathered for such foolishness, too wrinkled with worry about the ranch, the cattle, the injuns. Or so I like to imagine. Perhaps I do that too often--judge books by covers and weave stories before I know the full truth.

At first glance, the cowboy seems gruff, but I catch a smile on his face when he waves to the little girl across from him as she asks a million questions.

"Is that our plane?"

"Can we go inside yet?"

"What if it crashes?"


She's asking the questions we would all ask if we were young and unfettered in our anxieties. To ask them out loud would be inappropriate, so we sit in quiet unease.

Her pointed finger leaves a mark on the frost-coated window. The radio station this morning said 27 degrees. My sister says it's 75 in Austin.

"Is that sock weather?" I asked her.

"Should I bring a jacket?"

"Jeans or shorts?"


It's hard to know what to expect when you're someplace else.

There is a hodge-podge of folks waiting here this morning, young students and older couples, corporate types, and that one character who stands out just enough that we all glance at him with suspicion from time to time. Some read books with necks tilted this way and that. A woman near me works on a crossword puzzle, while her daughter stares into a cell phone, its screen casting a zombie-white sheen across her face.

The man I saw in the food court earlier sits next to me. His hair is a bit thin at the top and I notice a hint of gray--he is about my age. He wears dress pants and a pale blue button down. Is he on business or traveling home for the holidays? I picture both and wonder.

His cologne is familiar, and I think of my lover yesterday, smiling down as I rested my head against his thigh. It was a broad smile that caught me off-guard, and I laughed as he pulled me towards him for a kiss.

It is the first time I have thought of him this morning and I think I miss him. I want to think I miss him.

Would this man in the button down have seen me off this morning?

Kissed me passionately as if we were parting forever?

Shooshed kindly at the tears I cry whenever I leave something familiar?


A line is forming now in this corner of the terminal. First class is boarding already, and the rest of us gather our things and wait, single file.

In line at the coffee shop last night, my friend turned to me and said, "You expect too much of people." My blush of surprise was as evident as if she'd slapped me across the face.

"You are very loving," she continued, "but you expect people to love you the same way in return. It disappoints you when they can't."

"I thought it would be different," I said with a half smile, then change the subject. "I hear it's 75 in Austin. Can you imagine?"

.85616438

For Christmas, in 1993, I received a stapler. A sturdy, black metal Stanley Bostitch stapler, model B660. While it may seem like one of those regifting kind of gifts to some, to me it was special. It was the year I started my business, and the stapler was a “you're on your way, go for it!” gift that said “I know you can do it!”

I don't know if anyone, myself included, imagined this business would still be going strong some 16 years later! Or maybe we did. Either way, it seemed important to note that I used my last staple from that original gift this morning. The 5,000th, according to the box. That's an average of .85616438 staples per day.

We don't often note these small, inconsequential things. We staple away for 16 years in the same way we put a key in the front door or eat a meal at the kitchen table or pet the cat in the morning. But there are small blessings in each...a roof over our head, nourishment that sustains us, good companions on our journey, and people who knew all along “you can do it!”

The Afghan

"This," my friend says, "is lovely."
Lovely is never a word
I use to describe the ugly afghan
crocheted by my grandmother
and dragged out of storage
when guests sleep on the sofa.

It is avocado green and orange,
milk chocolate brown,
and amber gold,
like the yellow my parents
painted the kitchen
of our new house.

"She picked each color herself,"
my friend explains,
as she carefully runs her fingers
up and over the zigzag pattern
with awe and affection,
though she never
met my grandmother.

It is the color palette
of my seventies family,
when Mom and Dad
were almost-happy still,
my sister played with Barbie
by the sliding glass window,
and my bangs were
appropriately feathered
away from my face.

"She thought about
you and your family
with each stitch."

I could see her then,
sitting in her green recliner,
counting stitches like
the beads on her Rosary.
"Love Boat" on the Sylvania,
drinking instant iced tea
while a cigarette smokes
from the ashtray.

It was after her husband died,
and Grandmom traveled
with her dog Coco,
bringing Shoo Fly Pie and
Moravian Sugar Cake from
Pennsylvania to our house
in Connecticut.

That Christmas,
she crocheted ponchos for us, too,
and took me to Hawaii
to see my Grandfather's name
carved in marble at the
Pearl Harbor Memorial.

The same deft hands
that crafted this blanket
raised son and daughter
independently in the fifties;
folded in prayer
for neighbors and friends;
prepared feasts
with love
for grandchildren.

"So much thought went into this,"
my friend continues,
as we carefully fold the afghan
and place it on top
of the antique hope chest
in the corner.

"Each stitch, each row,
holds love and memories."

March Long Weekend

It's barely 6 a.m.
and I'm busy.
Thankfully busy
with last minute laundry
and suitcase selection.
The outfits I will wear
hang on the curtain rod
in the bathroom--
Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday.

In a flurry,
I pass by the list
that sits in the
dining room:
Journal - check.
Books - check.
Pens - check.
Half-finished story
that needs editing,
and a red pen - check.

The car is cleaned out.
The cat food is stacked
on the kitchen counter
with instructions for
how to and when to.
The extra coat,
ice scraper, boots,
and umbrella--
sentinels at the door:
"are we there yet?"

The laptop glows,
plugged in and humming.
The charger says the
camera will be ready soon.
The cell phone is attached
to the kitchen outlet--
when the light turns green
we "Go!"

So this is what they mean
by "recharging your batteries."

December Blind Date

[A Series of 100-Word Stories]

MY MOTHER THE SHADCHEN
Yiddish finds its way into my vocabulary at random. Words I heard as a child from grandparents of veiled decent--chachkas, kvetch, babooshka-sneak in like hiccups. "Fishstay?" Grammy would ask. "Do you understand?" I understood my Mother's intentions clearly. "He's a nice man," she told me. "He works at a bank and drives a nice car. You should meet." "Yenta," I thought. It hissed in my mind like a curse. But yenta, in Yiddish, is a talkative, gossipy woman. Shadchen (shadkhn) is a matchmaker. My mother, apparently, is both. It's how he became interested in the first place. Oy vey!

THE PIRATE GETS ME EVERY TIME
"Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?" asks the quiz in the magazine I flip through in the waiting room. I forgot my book and am left with this dreg of pop-communication to bide time. I have an eleven o'clock with Leon. Hair. Eyebrows. Let the preparatory date rituals commence! Luke Skywalker was nice, I think. Jedi Knight is a good job. He drove an x-wing fighter. "So, why is 'nice' a bad word?" I wonder, imagining my date sitting stoically across the table. Nice? Or swashbuckling renegade space smuggler? "Han Solo" I check the box emphatically. He had me from hello.

"I DO BELIEVE. I DO BELIEVE."
If I seem disenchanted, Mom, I apologize. "What do you look for in a man?" you asked me. Before I could answer, you filled in the blank yourself. "Is it his clothes? His job? The car he drives?" These never occur to me, but I can't explain that to you. "You never know," you said with a sparkle in your eye, while visions of nuptials and grandkids danced in your head. You want me to believe. Close my eyes and hear reindeer on the roof. I'm too old for that now, but I'll play along and leave my stocking out.

WISH LIST
"What do you look for in a man?" her question pokes at me. I search my brain like rummaging through my purse for keys. "Red Sox fan," was too specific for my sister. "If I get stuck watching baseball, at least I'll like the team," I explained, rather ambivalently. A blank page stares back at me. "Just toss words out," a friend told me, "like spaghetti on a wall. Something will come to you." "Easy laugh," I write. "Common interests. Creative. Likes to travel." I suspect my sister would say I was asking for too much, but I keep tossing.

A HUNDRED WORDS FOR SNOW
"You are alone," my mother's Greek boyfriend says, with great emphasis on the final word. He and my mother have been giddy and giggling since I agreed to the date. "You meet this man," he encourages me. "You like each other. You get married." "You are happy," he finishes, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile. He winks, as if we are sharing a secret. I wink back, but he misses my "just kidding" interpretation. Likewise, I am sure our definitions of "alone" and "happy" would get lost in translation, though I wish I understood his enthusiasm.

VISIONS OF...DRAGONS?
"I'm slaying dragons," I told a friend as D-Day approached, mocking my apprehension. I wasn't afraid when Mom escorted me to the formal introduction of my date--bemused, actually, as I imagined myself in ankle-length white cotton dress for this slightly archaic ritual. We met and shook hands. He had a kind face and we talked easily--through tea with the matchmakers, lunch and a walk at the beach. We shook hands again, and exchanged phone numbers. I didn't see any dragons, and a nice time was had by all. Or so he told me when he called last night!