Two years ago they hired a young (maybe 19 years old) guy to work with us in the garden center at the 666BBHS.
His name was Moris and to my amazement, he was a workhorse with integrity. No job was too big, no request too difficult. He had us all enchanted. People like him didn't exist at the BBHS.
We also had another young guy in the same sort of position (We'll call him Ego) and a department manager who was useless. I watched as Moris got sucked into the two of them. It was fairly apparent that the department manager wasn't fond of me and the two 'kids' followed his lead. I didn't care except that I knew Moris was better than that and that Ego was bad news all around. The department manager was just wasted filler.
Ego was Filipino, and good looking and had a penchant for the OTC drugs that pump you up. Moris started down that path and showed less respect for me than he usually did. The three of them would waste their time talking as they acted like they were working.
..........
Last year I found out Moris was Muslim. He's from Bosnia... and that's all I knew. When Ramadan came he was hungry and thirsty all day, but managed.
.........
The department manager left and Ego got transferred to another department. Though they used to seek each other out, I don't see them together anymore. Ego still has one, and Moris has gone back to being... amazing. In fact, he and two friends moved me for less money than they should have gotten.
.....
So, it's Ramadan again Moris has become Moki to me, because I asked if Moris was really his name.
Actually, it is. His father was watching old Western movies... heard the name and gave it to his son... but everyone who loves him, call him Moki... so I do.
We've talked about his fasting lately. Yesterday, he had had no sleep (a new girl, you know) and his stomach was cramping. I was trying to respect what he was doing, but it's hard to watch. He told me that he did it for his aunt, who is very serious about it, and he couldn't lie... should he choose to eat/drink.
......
Today was a different and beautiful story. He told me why he REALLY fasts, and I have nothing to compare it to.
.
.
.
We're in the middle of a thunderstorm so bad that they've closed the garden gate. I've been sitting in an empty garden center on an empty shelf watching the rain when he comes back from lunch. He says he might have to break his fast because he's soon to be in school twelve hours a day. It is so important to him that he can concentrate. And that spurs another conversation.
I want to know why someone else's opinion matters to him because he's told me about his aunt and how he's not really religious in the Muslim kind of way. I find out, she's not really important. This is what an early twenty-something told me in this year of 2011...
.
.
.
He said, "I was really small (and with his hand told me.... maybe three feet tall) when we came here. In Bosnia we fasted, not for religious reasons, but because there was no food. We came here with two suitcases... there was only paperwork inside, and look where where we are now (his parents are maintenance workers one place or the other, work like mad and now own a house two blocks away from the store).
But, I know there are still people fasting in Bosnia because they have no food and I think it's important that I remain humble."
I told him that as much as I admired him before, he truly was an amazing man.
There is hope for the future.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Forgotten Music
In high school.... 1972/73 my friends and I listened to a lot of lesser known music, usually off the wall Rock. But my friend Leslie, and I had some softer tastes. I remember loving a band called the Stories, for example (can't find but one of their songs to save my life now).
Leslie was the one who found the music and shared it with me when we would spend the night at each other's houses.
I was the listener in our friendship.
She was a pretty girl with wavy blond hair and a broken front tooth that enhanced, rather than detracted from her looks that all the guys wanted and usually got. I learned why during our nights together, or one single morning I will never forget when we left my bedroom before daybreak, walked the hill up to our high school, climbed to the roof on garbage cans and watched the sun rise together.... she was physically abused by her father... a man I said, "Hello, Mr. McAllister" to every time I visited their house..
I graduated a half-year early and started college. She apparently hooked up with a ne'er-do-well that had been in our 'hippie' group. I saw her once at a hotel I had worked at in our home town on a visit from Chicago. Her eyes were too bright and her demeanor too distant. It seemed to me the woman who had always been drowning was about to go under for the last time.
Some time later my mother called to say that she had died. The parents were trying to hush it up, but the story was it was AIDS. It was early in the epidemic, especially for Kentucky... but not so much for a pretty girl with a crooked smile who just wanted to be loved in the only way she 'knew'.... if only for an instant.
Leslie was the one who found the music and shared it with me when we would spend the night at each other's houses.
I was the listener in our friendship.
She was a pretty girl with wavy blond hair and a broken front tooth that enhanced, rather than detracted from her looks that all the guys wanted and usually got. I learned why during our nights together, or one single morning I will never forget when we left my bedroom before daybreak, walked the hill up to our high school, climbed to the roof on garbage cans and watched the sun rise together.... she was physically abused by her father... a man I said, "Hello, Mr. McAllister" to every time I visited their house..
I graduated a half-year early and started college. She apparently hooked up with a ne'er-do-well that had been in our 'hippie' group. I saw her once at a hotel I had worked at in our home town on a visit from Chicago. Her eyes were too bright and her demeanor too distant. It seemed to me the woman who had always been drowning was about to go under for the last time.
Some time later my mother called to say that she had died. The parents were trying to hush it up, but the story was it was AIDS. It was early in the epidemic, especially for Kentucky... but not so much for a pretty girl with a crooked smile who just wanted to be loved in the only way she 'knew'.... if only for an instant.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
For Hannah
"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes."
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes."
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Coach
The first person who crossed my path today and nearly cried was Coach. Well, that's what I call him because of the name on the back of his jacket. He's a ninety year old man who has been coming into the garden center for the four years I've been there. No matter how hot it is... heat indices to 105 degrees, he wears the same thing: huge boots, sweats that you know are covering up other pants, pull-over over sweater over shirt...fall sports jacket over that, and a hat.
Nearly every morning he trudges in, having arrived in his old faded cream-colored Cadillac. He says the doctor told him he has macular degeneration and knows he's not going to be able to drive for much longer. He's short and small with a fringe of white curly hair peeking out of his hat and he walks right over to the clearance racks. He always buys something.... usually lots of something... more than I know will fit in his yard, because I've seen it.
He lives in a small, nondescript house on a corner in a modest and mostly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood just east of the store. I've been told he's Jewish, but what do I know? His back yard is amazing... as well as the space on the side of his house between the sidewalk and the street. For some reason (and in my imagination I think it's his wife's wish) his front yard is boring... grass and boxwoods.
He gives a lot of the plants away. Grasses to the neighbor who likes them. Peppers to someone who coveted what she saw in his yard. He tells me.... 'I don't drink. I don't gamble. I don't go to restaurants. What's wrong with buying plants?'. I think someone in his family has had an issue with it, but
I don't argue.
He tells me that he used to go to the Botanic Garden and just walk, but now we are his garden. He goes to the health club and sometimes to a movie... and I've seen him at the McDonald's midway between his house and the store having coffee.
He tells me he wishes he'd known me when he was in business because I work so hard he would have hired me and then gone to Florida. Most of the time I don't understand what he's talking about and I think sometimes he knows that. He will shrug and say, "Don't mind me". I just tell him to keep coming back because the plants need him.
This morning he walked in and his eyes were wet. "I just needed five more minutes outside".
I asked what was wrong. He said, not in a matter-of-fact way, or angrily... just with such sorrow, "It's been a terrible day." Mind you, it was eight-thirty a.m.
What I garnered from his explanation was that his wife is ill ("she needs to be cleaned", he said) and his daughter was helping. But the daughter wanted to go shopping and hadn't woken him up in time to do his morning rounds. He was going to have to go home and sit in air conditioning, which he hates... for hours. He wouldn't even be able to go out into the garden. Apparently, the daughter was impatient.
But what I gleaned from our conversation was more .... sorrow and love for his wife and his need to get away from her in order to deal with the pain they are in. His broken grief washed over me and all I could say was, "Come back this afternoon. We'll see you this afternoon". I was trying to give him hope for a bit of sanity, but had no faith he would get it.
I stood in the middle of the day lilies and said a prayer that something good would happen for him today... and that I'd remember to be more grateful.... as he walked away.
.......
Two-ten p.m. I see him coming back. Before I could speak he tapped the big watch on his tiny wrist and said, "I have twenty minutes. At two-thirty I'll get a call" , and then he walked over to the clearance racks. He bought a lot of stuff. Someone had sat down three Rose of Sharon's that weren't part of the clearance next to the racks and since he wanted them, I marked them down.
His daughter had come back but wanted to leave again, so he had to go... and he managed to get out before the phone rang.
As he left I said, "We'll see you tomorrow". With any luck, on all of our parts... we will.
Nearly every morning he trudges in, having arrived in his old faded cream-colored Cadillac. He says the doctor told him he has macular degeneration and knows he's not going to be able to drive for much longer. He's short and small with a fringe of white curly hair peeking out of his hat and he walks right over to the clearance racks. He always buys something.... usually lots of something... more than I know will fit in his yard, because I've seen it.
He lives in a small, nondescript house on a corner in a modest and mostly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood just east of the store. I've been told he's Jewish, but what do I know? His back yard is amazing... as well as the space on the side of his house between the sidewalk and the street. For some reason (and in my imagination I think it's his wife's wish) his front yard is boring... grass and boxwoods.
He gives a lot of the plants away. Grasses to the neighbor who likes them. Peppers to someone who coveted what she saw in his yard. He tells me.... 'I don't drink. I don't gamble. I don't go to restaurants. What's wrong with buying plants?'. I think someone in his family has had an issue with it, but
I don't argue.
He tells me that he used to go to the Botanic Garden and just walk, but now we are his garden. He goes to the health club and sometimes to a movie... and I've seen him at the McDonald's midway between his house and the store having coffee.
He tells me he wishes he'd known me when he was in business because I work so hard he would have hired me and then gone to Florida. Most of the time I don't understand what he's talking about and I think sometimes he knows that. He will shrug and say, "Don't mind me". I just tell him to keep coming back because the plants need him.
This morning he walked in and his eyes were wet. "I just needed five more minutes outside".
I asked what was wrong. He said, not in a matter-of-fact way, or angrily... just with such sorrow, "It's been a terrible day." Mind you, it was eight-thirty a.m.
What I garnered from his explanation was that his wife is ill ("she needs to be cleaned", he said) and his daughter was helping. But the daughter wanted to go shopping and hadn't woken him up in time to do his morning rounds. He was going to have to go home and sit in air conditioning, which he hates... for hours. He wouldn't even be able to go out into the garden. Apparently, the daughter was impatient.
But what I gleaned from our conversation was more .... sorrow and love for his wife and his need to get away from her in order to deal with the pain they are in. His broken grief washed over me and all I could say was, "Come back this afternoon. We'll see you this afternoon". I was trying to give him hope for a bit of sanity, but had no faith he would get it.
I stood in the middle of the day lilies and said a prayer that something good would happen for him today... and that I'd remember to be more grateful.... as he walked away.
.......
Two-ten p.m. I see him coming back. Before I could speak he tapped the big watch on his tiny wrist and said, "I have twenty minutes. At two-thirty I'll get a call" , and then he walked over to the clearance racks. He bought a lot of stuff. Someone had sat down three Rose of Sharon's that weren't part of the clearance next to the racks and since he wanted them, I marked them down.
His daughter had come back but wanted to leave again, so he had to go... and he managed to get out before the phone rang.
As he left I said, "We'll see you tomorrow". With any luck, on all of our parts... we will.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Twilight, and there is noise everywhere.
Fireworks.
There is the soft, cottony pop of the small ones and the sudden flat-slap of the ones thrown against a wall or sidewalk. There are the whistles and explosions from across the street, and small echos of the same somewhere down the beach. The air is vivid with sound, and I know that Reva's dog, Buddy, is in a closet... four buildings down.... shaking like crazy. Meander doesn't even notice. Fireworks can be like storms, to some.
...................
My Dad is in the hospital. He's eighty-six and really wants/sometimes attempts to be twenty-something again so he can go out with all the girls he didn't pick back then. He's in Florida. I am, of course, in Illinois. He has some internal bleeding, so he's drinking that juice that will make tomorrows colonoscopy go ... well, well; and we talked between his visits to the bathroom.
..................
It's dark now and there are pops here and there, but the day is almost done.... hotdogs eaten. Grills extinguished. Just a few more flowers in the sky and the holiday is over.
................
Dad said he was thinking about me the other day and how we used to sit watching storms roll in, in the.... he couldn't remember the word.
Carport.
"Yes. And you would say, 'That was a BIG one, Dad!"
...................
I never knew I said that, until tonight. All I've known is that I've never been afraid of the weather. Respectful, yes... but never afraid because I'd always been in a lap with an outstretched arm, pointing out the truth... Thunder is caused by a lightening strike and lightening is caused by....
...............
It's about time he gives up the freedom he has now. I and my step-sister have tried so hard to let him be but it's time to quit.
.................
When I was little, he had an airplane... a Cessna. He tells me there was a day when I was small that he, I and my mother were in the plane during the storm. He was handling it, my mother was freaking and I was calm.
Of course, I was. I knew him, even then.
....................
She made him give up the plane. I don't know how it happened, but that plane sat in the front yard for a while, before it was gone. It must have killed him, to give up the sky.
..........
Of course, there are renegade fireworks going off this late. I suppose they will go off all evening.
...........
Fireworks.
There is the soft, cottony pop of the small ones and the sudden flat-slap of the ones thrown against a wall or sidewalk. There are the whistles and explosions from across the street, and small echos of the same somewhere down the beach. The air is vivid with sound, and I know that Reva's dog, Buddy, is in a closet... four buildings down.... shaking like crazy. Meander doesn't even notice. Fireworks can be like storms, to some.
...................
My Dad is in the hospital. He's eighty-six and really wants/sometimes attempts to be twenty-something again so he can go out with all the girls he didn't pick back then. He's in Florida. I am, of course, in Illinois. He has some internal bleeding, so he's drinking that juice that will make tomorrows colonoscopy go ... well, well; and we talked between his visits to the bathroom.
..................
It's dark now and there are pops here and there, but the day is almost done.... hotdogs eaten. Grills extinguished. Just a few more flowers in the sky and the holiday is over.
................
Dad said he was thinking about me the other day and how we used to sit watching storms roll in, in the.... he couldn't remember the word.
Carport.
"Yes. And you would say, 'That was a BIG one, Dad!"
...................
I never knew I said that, until tonight. All I've known is that I've never been afraid of the weather. Respectful, yes... but never afraid because I'd always been in a lap with an outstretched arm, pointing out the truth... Thunder is caused by a lightening strike and lightening is caused by....
...............
It's about time he gives up the freedom he has now. I and my step-sister have tried so hard to let him be but it's time to quit.
.................
When I was little, he had an airplane... a Cessna. He tells me there was a day when I was small that he, I and my mother were in the plane during the storm. He was handling it, my mother was freaking and I was calm.
Of course, I was. I knew him, even then.
....................
She made him give up the plane. I don't know how it happened, but that plane sat in the front yard for a while, before it was gone. It must have killed him, to give up the sky.
..........
Of course, there are renegade fireworks going off this late. I suppose they will go off all evening.
...........
Sunday, July 3, 2011
To That Good End
Just been thinking about you all day. The date hit me this morning. It ballooned inside of me until I told a co-worker (who is gay, nervous about it, and old enough to know better). I dreamt of you two nights ago.
I wish you could experience things now. The rights that Carey fought so hard for in the 70's and 80's are becoming real. I'm glad that we had our time, and married and that we ended fully aware... still bonded. But now, you could love and marry someone in the other part of your heart. I hope you know it's come to that good end.
I miss you, and what we were.
Color some fireworks in your own special way.
Would you?
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