Indecisive Peach

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When I was in about sixth grade, my Mom started to get that twinkle in her eye. Having a good-natured and easy-going bilingual child, my Mom decided, was entirely not enough and when schooling became a chore of finding one’s niche in extracurriculars, she honed in on mine being languages.

“Take Spanish,” she’d say, the gleam intensifying, “You’d be trilingual.”

We lived in a fairly rural part of Germany at the time. “Where would I use it?” I tried reasoning. We didn’t travel much beyond moving between the States and Germany. When we were stateside, we had had two placements in Utah – at the time Utah was pretty white-bread America. But my reasoning was not given an answer, because Moms’ and their twinkles don’t need answers, and being the good child, I enrolled for three years of Spanish classes varying between three to five hours of week.

Anyone learning a language will tell you that those sort of hours are ludicrous in terms of practical usage and my exposure was not of the high-brow academic type. My Spanish teacher in seventh grade was a pleasant Home Ec Teacher from Dallas from whom I have inherited my forever tainted Spanish TexMex Howy’alldoin’ enunciation, making me nearly nonfunctional in actually being understood by Spanish speakers. My eighth grade teacher contended with the rising hormones of younger me as I stood around tittering how “muy guapo” I found certain classmates. Ninth grade was a complete wash in Germany, but as we got assigned New Mexico, my Mom’s twinkle returned wearing a smug sundress. “You’ll be able to practice Spanish.”

And then we realized that the New Mexico we landed in was essentially the cowboy panhandle of Texas where speaking about Jesus was the more natural lingua franca.

So as I found myself in a bustling dining room surrounded by nothing but native Spanish speakers two weekends ago, my mind’s refrain was, “I should have really paid more damn attention in Spanish class.”

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As we sat on the couch, the talk sparked back to some sort of violence that related enough to him. GS sat next to me and as I looked up toward his profile watching the TV, I poked him and said, “You,” another poke for emphasis, “are not allowed to die.”

He jutted his chin out slightly, kept watching the TV, and calmly said, “I won’t. I have a fate.”

I’ve been thinking of this lately. Of fate and how what we suffer through make us the people that we end up being, for better, for worse, for that little bit of extra dimension in our lives. I’ve always had the thought that there are probably an exponential amount of dimensions of ourselves from the choices we may not have made in this run. Those squealing tires just missing you? There’s one less of you somewhere out there.

Later that night, GS ran his hands across my back and asked if there was a scar. I gave the nutshell version and somehow said something to the effect that there must be a reason I’m here because it was all a little dicey.

I think, at least currently, this dimension is rooting for me. Here is the non-nutty, and long, version. I couldn’t help myself with the title.

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If things had gone differently in America, the doctor I saw this week would have been the perfect genetic outcome of many strains of Anglos mixing with various nations of Native Americans. He has salt and pepper hair, pale naturally tanned skin and eyes that twinkled as they drooped down at the sides. Both times he wore a bolo tie with a respectable sheeting of turquoise.

As the nurse left the room on Monday and asked me to move from the chair to the examination high chair, I debated if I should stay properly upright. I swayed a bit and flopped onto my back. When the doctor came in, I slid an elbow under me and propped myself up, looking up with bloodshot eyes and unkempt hair. He cocked his head and waved cheerily, “No – please!”

The good news was that it was the flu, he said and continued that, the bad news was that it was the flu. He leaned against the counter; did I want a couple of days off?

Boy. Do I. The last couple of weeks have been rough.

Short version: My grandma had a several stroke paralysing her mind and body and my Mom moved back to Germany.

The second time the doctor came in to fill a prescription for antibiotics, he apologized and asked me to stand and move to the scale. The scale was at the number left by the nurse when she wieghed me at the beginning. He hemmed and hawed a bit.

“Since you’ve been here in November you’ve lost eleven pounds.”
“It’s been a rough three weeks.”
He opens my file and looks at me somewhat sadly, “Are you going to be able to gain that back?”
I gave him my best sick person gleeful smile, “Oh don’t you worry about that.”

I had what I’ve been calling a Come To Jesus talk with J the other day. Without really revealing his end, let’s just say that I tried to put the best face on adulthood from what I’ve seen so far. “It can be…not so terrible.”

I sighed into the dark and then told him, “Okay, it’s sometimes fairly terrible.”

Mundane example: I finally reached critical mass on my pants-without-holes status. Every good pair jeans, save for one, had holes either normally placed in the knees or embarrassingly placed in crucial seams. There was now a dire need, forcing myself out of my human blanket burrito on Sunday and stumbling out to the stores, because the thought of wearing skirts for the next weeks was completely unappealing.

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I came back to town from the break with a manic high. Within a week, I’m forced to do a blog post face-off with my friend to motivate me to get back into writing shape. Writing has seemingly fled from me, every now and then looking back and luring me with ideas during times when I have no way to write them down.

Let’s talk about the break. It was good; in fact, much better than I thought it would be. I had to pick up a car from my Mom out of our remaining Volvo population. And while I am now the proud and titled owner of three separate vehicles, none have airbags or power windows so I’m not exactly sure where I come out on a tally of life success. This new, old, Volvo was the car I drove in high school and as a friend, and former prom date of mine, settled into it the other day he stiffened and said, “The last time I was in this car… I think I was in a tux.”

At some point during my sophomore year in college there was an unfortunate incident with my exhaust falling off the car. It showered the road with sparks and I decided that using a possibly flammable bungee cord would be a good call to hoist it back up. It was an incident when, where left to my own devices, I managed to finagle some success out something tinged with a bit of madness. I think this sums up my hope for the New Year.

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Sweet mother of pearl am I glad that NaBloPoMo is over. It was more worry and stress than I really needed. I think it might have only been cathartic maybe once or twice.

Like this post: I’ve been dreading the need to write this all day. I’m just tired of having something I enjoy become negative.

10. There is a dog snoring contentedly not four feet away from me.

9. I never thought I’d say I’m thankful for a ticket to Amarillo, but there we are.

8. There is only one more disappointing fun class to go.

7. My turkey wasn’t too dry.

6. I have great water pressure in the shower. [It's the little things.]

5. I can stand in the before-mentioned shower and feel everything in my body is in working order.

4. Everyone I know and love can say roughly the same.

3. Even though most are are flights away, I have dear family and friends.

2. They all put up with me.

1. Thus, I have hope for the future.