When Sarah Met Clyve, Part 3

[You can read part 1 of this story here, and part 2 here.]

What-have-I-done?  What-have-I-done?  What-have-I-done?

Clyve teetered on the spot and…THUD.

Cheesecake

When she called with the news, I felt helpless. Here I was delighting in discovering my new hometown – a place with art, and architecture, and music, and tourists – and my friend was hurting, miles away. She had suffered one of those losses for which words are useless, and physical gestures are the primary means through which you can show your support. Hugs. A prepared meal. Comfortable silence. All things you can’t do from across the country.

I considered sending flowers, but it felt wrong. It wasn’t Valentine’s day, and she had never been one for flowers. Flowers die. Giving her loss after The Loss would be like shining a spotlight on the emotional ripples that would flow from this event over the next weeks.

When Sarah Met Clyve, Part 2

You can read part 1 of this story here.

Sarah rolled over, curling into Clyve’s ever-present warmth.  She suspected that he’d found some dizzy, unnatural means of fending off the cold to better survive the winter nights of Washington, DC’s lonelier park benches.  He gave off heat the way a cat or a space heater did.  Lots better though.

captain jack's discovery

Hello. I am Captain Jack, and I am a man of both science and leisure. Please do not limit your opinion of my character me to either of these categories, as both principles are equally important to my life’s pursuits.

peanut butter al fresco

Once a week, I have a private French lesson with the most lovely Belgian woman. She's very calm, civilized and pleasant.

Last week when we had our lesson, Madame and I were chatting in the living room while my son Jack played on the back porch. I'd left the door open so he could wander in and out and tell us all about his various exploits out there. Jack is not quite two years old, so these little updates consisted mostly of him charging into the living room with something in his hand, gabbling loudly and happily about it and running back out with great pride. In the nude.

First-Line Friday (returns)

As Celia riffled through the box of items her Great Aunt Merkindra had left her, she suddenly jerked her hand back in shock at what she'd just encountered.

Now your turn! E-mail us your story at gzorkme@gmail.com, and you may see it here on Tuesday!

A Slow Demise

“Heather C. Peyton, age 26, died on February 11, after a brave battle with leukemia.  She is survived by her parents, Ronald and Deborah Peyton, her sister Courtney, and her brother Jacob.  A loving daughter, and a friend to all who knew her, Heather will be sorely missed.”

Loss

This is Jack and Uncle Sarah's last outing together for the foreseeable future.  She's moving to Washington, DC, on Saturday, and I'm a-shambles just dealing with saying goodbye.  I'm so sad that I feel like someone has died.  I'll probably see her again in May and perhaps again around Christmas or Thanksgiving, but with her departure something almost tangible has gone out of my life.

  

Every weekend for the last year or so we have spent a few hours together here and there.  We could count on each other as dates to go see theatre productions or movies that no one else would want to see and to recommend books or magazines that no one else would want to read so that we could talk about them.  We watched the same worthless reality television together while we painted our nails and drank adult beverages.  We had the best fun playing grown-up together.

 

And she's my writing partner.  Years ago, when we were in college and then graduate school, we'd make odd runs for things late at night.  Once, in a pharmacy drive-thru line, I discovered that she would often make up stories about the people whose backs we had to stare at, and I demanded to hear some of them.  To say that she has a vibrant inner life is to shortchange what goes on in that head.  Not only is she easily the smartest person I know, but she is also the most imaginative, colorful, and whimsical.

 When we said goodbye tonight, I made it exactly halfway down the hall back to my apartment before the tears started to well up.  I tried to breathe them away as I started putting groceries away and finished getting Giant Toddler ready for bed.  Once life's little necessities were taken care of, I turned on the shower, sat down in it, and cried in the ugly, loud style.   

 

 

Now, I've finally worn myself out enough to be done with feelings for the night.  I'll make a stack of books to read and a list of goals as I resume writing this week.  Maybe I'll even make a vision board for Sarah and Stephanie's new ten-year plan.  Then, tomorrow we'll e-mail each other obsessively, just like always, and I'll try to find something to do with all my newly-freed weekends.

First-Line Friday Follow-up: Zucchini

I wasn't always a zucchini, and I think that's the important thing to remember.

First-Line Friday

I wasn't always a zucchini, and I think that's the important thing to remember.

Now your turn! E-mail us your story at gzorkme@gmail.com, and you may see it here on Tuesday!

Secret Slumber Party

There is a single night from my childhood that defined motherhood for me, at least motherhood done well.  This moment encapsulated the wisdom, power, grace, and love that children long to see in their mothers, and that I believe mothers hope to have.

First-line Follow-up: Valentine's Day 2004

This is the story of Valentine's Day 2004, a day that will live in infamy.  That was the day Centavo met Ouisie.  The sky was blue, the birds were singing, and Ouisie was wearing about a quart of cow manure.

When Sarah Met Clyve, Part 1

Not so terribly long ago, perhaps a couple of years, during the time that Sarah’s public history would place her in law school, she was working in our nation’s capital as a checkout clerk at a Mexican grocery store. She’d always loved going to the grocery store and took a peculiar pleasure in using self-checkout lanes so that she could experience the whole ordeal in Spanish. So, this had seemed like the logical next step in terms of doing what she loved.

Each day as she lovingly traveled to her tienda, she thought of what unusual root vegetables might arrive that day or what exotic supernatural trinkets the impulse buys at her checkout lane might include. And each day she passed a variety of panhandlers and other “street folk” (as she fondly thought of them.)

First-line Friday

This is the story of Valentine's Day 2004, a day that will live in infamy.

The Real Story

Some would have you believe that we met during the pursuit of noble things such as learning, art, or justice. While this is certainly a tidy fiction, a pretty façade on our partnership, the real story has merit of its own. And I believe you are ready for the truer, darker tale that lies at the foundation of our friendship.

A Day at the Zoo

Once upon a time, there was a hippolotafus. Her name was Pangarelle, and when she looked in the mirror, she loved what she saw. Every morning Pangarelle would leap out of bed, pirouette toward the full-length mirror hanging on the wall opposite her bed, and twirl before the mirror, fluttering her eyelashes at the beautiful creature she saw before her. Long, shapely feet (that were nearly as wide again,) knees that were perfectly angled and planed (they had four of each apiece,) a great, bushy tail (that was always perfectly coiffed,) matronly hips (usually draped in pleasingly maidenly taffeta,) a teensy (weensy) waist, and sugar-coated shoulders (delicious!) would greet her face (which was, incidentally, her favorite feature of them all.)

Nitwits and Oddmints

I awoke with a start, sitting stark upright in the bed. It was the third time that night.

Something had to be done.

The boy must be stopped.

First-line Friday

Once upon a time, there was a hippolotafus. Her name was Pangarelle, and when she looked in the mirror, she loved what she saw.

Now your turn! E-mail us your story at gzorkme@gmail.com, and you may see it here!

Giant Baby and the U-verse Box

It was love at first sight. For the baby anyway. One look at that black and gray box, with its glowing green eyes, gentle whirring noise, and the faint scent of warm circuitry and the baby knew his life would never be the same.  He crawled towards the box, slowly, transfixed. None of the other flashing lights in the apartment held any attraction for him now. He was a one-device baby.  

Commencement

Once upon a time, there were two little girls whose whimsy levels were well above average. Their respective parents thought them quite bright and planned nice, sensible, stable futures for them, urging them towards nice, sensible, stable career paths. Ultimately, the whimsical little girls became studious and hardworking young women who were scared senseless by the very thought of a future based on doing something they enjoyed. They found themselves in law school, and that seemed to be the end of that.

The once-whimsical young ladies completed law school and immediately began making choices based on fear. Fear of financial insecurity, fear of what was next, and fear of autonomy. One took a job at a large firm with demanding hours and no whimsy whatsoever, while the other began scrambling to pull some kind of respectable adult life together while awaiting the birth of her first child.

A couple of years passed more or less like this—merely existing from one anxiety-ridden decision to the next—until the friends decided to finally take control of their lives and start doing something they loved.

Telling stories.