This is my new story. Not so new, couple of months old. Rejected from everywhere I sent it. Inspired by Chekhov and the most amazing and horrible story ever from Flannery O’Connor:

The kid is crying and screaming so I get a headache just walking down the same aisle. There are two kids, and the mother is yelling at the other kid, the one who was just quiet and looking scared and not asking for anything. I gotta say, she doesn’t seem like the kind of mom who lets her children cry in a grocery store. She’s just normal, you know, American, speaking English, with a nice haircut. And sure, she’s wearing sweatpants, but the nice kind, with pockets, and not baggy or dirty.

Of course I’ve just come from church, so I’m dressed nice. Nothing too showy, just a slacks suit and a nice blouse. Lovely rose color. To tell the truth, I had some of that lemon cake that Helen Davis brought to church, you know, with the glaze frosting. And I don’t think it was too fresh, cause she’d already cut it up, like you know they do when they’re trying to pass off leftover cake as new. I had some of that coffee, too, like they have at church. So my belly is feeling a little bubbly, and my pants are feeling a little tight. What else too is that it’s very hot outside. It’s a glowering day, with the air heavy and wet, the kind of day that pushes you down. They have those screens on the big windows of the grocery store, the dark ones that seem to shimmer and make it always feel like a storm coming, so you’re surprised when you get outside to the full force of the summer sun. I cannot tell a lie, I’m a little damp, I’ve got trickles of sweat here and there, and the air conditioning feels good.

I stand for a spell in the cold foods aisle, enjoying the frosty misting air. I pretend to study the labels on some yogurt, because you don’t want to stand too long in one place with nothing do, because that can make a person look crazy. So I’m studying the yogurt, but to tell you the truth I can’t stand the stuff. An older lady—older than me, even—stands nearby staring in some sort of wonder at her shopping list. She’s wearing a house dress—faded, but clean and not too wrinkled, and some of those sturdy shoes you imagine they might sell in a hospital. She doesn’t know where she is. She doesn’t know why she’s there. Her hands are shaking and she drops her pen. I pick it up for her because that’s the kind of person I am. I believe in helping people.

I nearly bust my nice pants bending to get it, the waist cuts in something awful, but I get there in the end. Does she thank me? She does not. She just looks at me with lost streaming eyes. On the PA system some teenager sings about love, just like they always have. The light is looming in the window and that darn kid is screaming down the aisles, and I feel bothered by something. Something I heard, something I said, something I can’t quite remember. Maybe at church or on the car radio or walking into the grocery store; and now I feel worse trying to remember all of the ways I might feel bad. I turn away. I just turn away from her and get on with my shopping.

And what do I see but a woman in her pajamas! Not very nice pajamas, either, as if that would make a difference. Just dingy, terry-cloth pink pajamas, much too large for her, so that she keeps hoisting them up with the fist that’s not holding the cart. And she sniffles every time she does. Hoist…sniff…hoist…sniff. She’s wearing bedroom slippers, too, of course, the cheap kind with the plastic soles, which slap slap slap on the linoleum. She’s with a woman who could be her mother or could be the same age, it’s hard to tell. They both have the same slack expression on their face, like they aren’t curious about a thing in the world.
She stands scratching her belly and says, “Did you get the puddin’?”
“It’s in the cart.”
“The big puddin’?”
“It’s in the cart.”
“Oh, no, I meant the Jello.”
Pudding! There’s nothing wrong with it, of course. Honestly I prefer it to yogurt, doesn’t everyone? But adults don’t eat it. You can’t eat it when you’re an adult, even if you want to. From the look of their cart they don’t care. All chips and soda and frosted cakes. I look up from the cart and see that the young one is staring at me with a strange expression. I gotta say she’s almost pretty, almost delicate—small nose, high cheekbones, a light spattering of freckles. And the look she gives me! It’s, well it’s almost a look of pity. And I don’t know how that makes me feel, I really don’t. I just turn away again, and as I do I hear her saying, “Not the grape Jello, the lime Jello.”

The shimmery, stormy light of the windows bears down on me, and I’m sitting in a car, oh so long ago, with my husband, though he wasn’t my husband then, of course. We’re parked somewhere, I don’t remember now and I doubt I knew then. The windows are open though a storm is kicking up; the hot air bustling through the windows, the thunder louder and louder and louder and the rain just starting to spatter into the windows. But we didn’t care. I wasn’t as scared of the storm as I was of Russell. I knew what to expect from a storm, but Russell….

The radio is on, but it’s late at night, and they’re not playing much music, they’re taking calls, and they’re talking to some joker who says that grape popsicles are better than lime popsicles. He goes on about it longer than you’d think a person could. And Russell says, “I wouldn’t eat either,” and then he leans in and kisses me, and I thought I was melting like a popsicle. And then the storm really broke over us, rain dashing through the windows. Then the radio or maybe the rain started playing Everybody Plays the Fool, and I thought am I am I am I but I didn’t care.

Everywhere I go in the store, there she is with the screaming child. It’s like she is following me or playing some strange game of hide and seek down the aisles. The kid’s voice has to be getting tired but he just keeps getting louder and louder. Everywhere people are giving each other these looks, like, thank god that’s not my kid, and what the hell is wrong with that mom? And there’s another mom, going the other way, with so much noise, but her kids are laughing and chittering chattering in Spanish, I guess. So many kids she has, too, three or four, and they’re clambering all over the cart, riding inside or hanging on in front.

They’re coming towards each other at a great pace. The crying louder on one side, the laughing and chattering on the other. All the noise and the looming lights and the memories are making me feel ill. The bubbles in my belly are fizzing, my fingers are tingling, and the noise is suddenly blindingly loud. I have a premonition of great and terrible violence. I envision a sharp sudden attack and blood in the aisles, screams in the air. I can feel it as a chill. I can feel it as a blow. The lights flicker and I fall to the ground in the tolling darkness.

Pictures, memories, revelations, urgent and strange, speed through my brain, the most important, the most insistent, completely unforgettable. Everything is explained.

I open my eyes to silence and small staring faces. The screaming has stopped, the laughing has stopped, everything I understood a second ago is gone.
I have landed flat on my butt on the dusty floor. My nice rose slacks have split, I’m sure of it. I feel so tired, so strangely drained, that I almost don’t care about sitting on the floor in split pants, with these children staring and staring at me. I want Russell. I want Russell to come and pick me up off the floor, and put his jacket over my pants. I feel so suddenly all alone that, well, I start to cry. Not in a nice way, neither, in a blubbering, tears streaming down my face kind of a way.

And I think that I don’t care about these people staring at me, this mom who can’t get her stupid kid to stop crying. That mom who doesn’t even speak American in America for chrissake. I don’t care how I look around them, and thinking about this makes me bawl even louder.

And then the little girl, the one who doesn’t speak English, she comes up to me with the serious face and the big dark eyes, and she hands me her half-drunk juice bottle, and she says, “This will make you feel better.”
Well! I don’t like kids, to be honest, I think they’re gross and full of germs. Dirty creatures. But almost against my will, as if I’m watching myself from the outside, I take her juice, and I drink it. I drink it all. It’s sweet and a little thick, a little tart, like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. And I do feel better. And then the boy, the little boy who has been yelling his A-double-S off all over the store, he comes over all serious, with a face streaked with dirt and tears, and he hands me a toy he’s holding, a little spaceship with a broken wing, so heavy, so fragile. He’s not crying any more, and neither am I. I can tell he really wants it back. Sure, I’m going to give it back to him. But I hold onto it for now, because I really can’t let it go. And then the mothers, they each bend down and take an elbow, and they pull me to my feet. They don’t look like strong women, and I am not small, but they make easy work of it.

I stand swaying on my feet for a moment, and one woman gives me a tissue from her bag, which smells like all the things you need to keep children safe and happy. And the other asks if she can call anyone.
No no no no. I say. I say, “I’m fine.” I give back the spaceship, I give back the tissue, though I’ve already used it. I pull myself up and steady myself on the cart. And I walk away. I want to say thank you. I want to tell them that I love them all, because I do, I love them so much it hurts like when you press a bruise. Tender. But I don’t say anything else. I walk away.

I walk back to the pudding, and I put some in my cart. Everybody Plays the Fool comes on the PA system, and I feel like I’m floating on the sound. Everybody, everybody I pass is singing along, as they move through the aisles.

In the parking lot it’s stark staring sun flashing blinding off the cars. But on the drive home I see the storm clouds in my rear-view window, travelling faster than I am, they will catch me, I know it.

The Main Ingredient. Everybody Plays the Fool

Clio knows that he gets off the third bus. The first two she lets pass with only the mildest of interest. But when the third bus stops, she waits alert and aching with anticipation. When Malcolm appears around the corner, she races over at her ridiculous top speed, she circles him a few times, and then she bolts back to me to give me her signature double-muddy-paw-to-the-belly kick, to make sure I’m paying attention to the miracle of her boy coming home from school. And then we collect Isaac, who is (to use a phrase he himself propelled into popular parlance) Fun To Be With. Isaac is a man who always answers the banal question, “How was your day?” with a series of interesting and unexpected stories.

I listen to Isaac’s stories with one ear, and with the other try to sort through Malcolm’s stream of pleasant absurdities for any actual news about his day. It has rained since the middle of the night, an incessant pouring rain, but this is a pause. The sky has a flat yellow winter-twilight glow, though it‘s only 3 o’clock. A block away fire engines scream down Main Street, with their sense of panic and urgency, and everyone turns to watch. Crowds of children walking home from school turn and stare at the lights and the noise. Ahead of us a flock of blackbirds hover strangely in front of a stop sign. Turns out there’s a branch with bright red berries crossing the sign. The birds eating stopsign-red berries don’t care about the fire truck, as they create a pressing disturbance of their own. Underneath all the noise is a strange waiting stillness. It feels like something will happen, even if it’s just the small change of more rain falling or night drawing in.

It’s a slender story, there’s not much to it. Just walking home from school as millions of people do millions of times, day-in-day-out. And yet it seems worth saving.

I read a story the other day about a student walking home, written by one Anton Chekhov. Ivan, the student, is walking home just at the end of the day, and though it’s spring, winter is in the air. He’s cold and hungry and night is falling, and “It seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things, that nature itself felt ill at ease, and that was why the evening darkness was falling more rapidly than usual. All around it was deserted and particularly gloomy.” Ivan’s mood reflects the weather and the time of day, and he thinks about the neverending history of ignorance and poverty and want. “…he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression — all these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. And he did not want to go home.”

He stops to warm himself at the fire of “the widows”—a mother and daughter who sit washing up after dinner. He tells them that the Apostle Peter must have warmed himself at just such a fire, and though they say they know the story, he goes on to tell it anyway, the story of Peter denying Jesus. It happens to be from The Bible, but what’s important is that it’s a tale of human frailty, doubt and forgiveness, from somewhere far away and long ago. When he looks up he finds the mother widow weeping, with big tears flowing freely down her cheeks. He says goodnight and he moves on, he crosses a river by ferry boat. He thinks about the widow being moved by the story, not because of the way in which he told it, but because “Peter was near to her.” He’s moved by their connection to a story from a far off time and place, and the unchanging progress of history that seemed so bleak to him before suddenly fills him with joy.

“The past,” he thought, “is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.” And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered…he thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day…and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, marvelous, and full of lofty meaning.

This past year it has occasionally felt as though the icy wind of ignorance and hate is gathering strength, and it’s easy to feel discouraged and gloomy, particularly on a pouring-down-rainy day. But maybe there will be a break in the rain, and you’ll watch people you love deliriously happy to see other people you love, and you’ll think about parents all over the world all down the years meeting their children at school. And this will remind you of a story about a student walking home, a story that moved you very much about a story that moved others very much. And little by little even small things will seem marvelous and full of lofty meaning.

This is a sort of cake I make a lot. You can try it with any kind of jam you like (I like cherry or raspberry!). You can leave the chocolate out. You can try with different nuts, but you might find that almonds make it the smoothest. I like to add a shake of cinnamon sometimes. you can even leave the jam and chocolate out and this is still good. you can also wait to add the chocolate till you take it out of the oven. Then turn the oven off and scatter the chips over. Return to oven for a minute or two until the chocolate is soft. Smooth it over the top with a knife or spoon, and then let cool.

Here’s a collection of songs performed by Reverend Gary Davis in a beautiful film

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There was a candy factory in the town where I spent my early twenties. When you sat out on somebody’s soft dusty tar-covered rooftop, when you looked out over all the other rooftops in the city and into the bright dinning windows, with a million questions on your mind, the air would be hot and sugary and full of promise.

The town I live in now is teeming with elderflowers and linden and honeysuckle, and on a June day when you step out of your front door you’re met with a wave of warm sweet air, air you could swim in, air you could eat. Many of the questions are answered now, but of course every answer spawns a million new questions, which pester you in the middle of the night like needy children.

The other morning after breakfast the boys set out to bring me an early birthday present, with much whispering in code words, much laughing and conspiring. I expected them to come home before too long with a rock or a stick or a feather. Maybe with a toad peeing through their fingers. But an hour passed, and then another, and they weren’t back. So I went to look for them. Onto the magical dog island. Past the house where I think nobody lives, past the place that smells like some weed not sweet at all, but savory and sharp with a hint of scent-of-wet-dog; that smells like memories of childhood places we weren’t quite allowed to be. Behind garages, between buildings, by train tracks and at the edge of parking lots at the edge of town. Uncultivated.

Past all of that, onto paths that rise and fall and rise again, that twist this way and that. It occurred to me that I almost never take a walk alone. I always have a boy or a dog with me. It felt strange, like I’d forgotten something, like I should go back and start again. I passed a man walking with a tiny boy, and I wanted to ask if he’d seen my giant boys, but I didn’t. And then it got very quiet. No people, no dogs, just woodthrushes, who always sound like they’re trying to remind you of what is important, always quietly to tell you to Pay Attention. I listened for my boys, and I could almost imagine hearing them around every corner. But being a mother means almost-always nearly-hearing your child calling for you, from day one.

Finally I found them, bright and laughing, on the train bridge over the canal. They didn’t seem surprised to see me, they almost seemed to be expecting me, which made it all feel like a dream. They had a secret—they had something hidden under the bridge. But it didn’t take them long to tell me: they were collecting honeysuckle nectar in a little bottle. Well! It’s something I had done when I was a child, a story I had told them many times. We want to bring back memories, they said. Did we bring back memories? My god, yes, but the memories you’re stirring aren’t nearly as powerful as the memories you’re making. Memories gathered drop-by-drop in a small bottle.

A few days later Isaac and I sat on a bench in a park on a summer evening, with the clouds seeming to spread in bright soft circles over our heads, and he informed me that he knows what he wants to be when he grows up–he wants to be an animator. He also said it makes him a little sad to know what he wants to be. I tried to cheer him up by saying that an animator can go anywhere and do all different kinds of work, can create any sort of world imaginable (and I can’t wait to see the worlds in his head!). But I also told him it was ok to feel sad about it, that I understood feeling sad about it, and he looked at me with an expression that only Isaac can make, and said, “I know you do.” And I tell you it makes your heart ache a little to look into the sweet serious face of the best possible answer to a question you didn’t even know you were asking, and think about all of the other best possible answers you couldn’t have dreamed of, and all of the millions of new questions they make you ask every day, and all of the questions your answers will ask, and the answers they’ll be surprised by and on and on forever.

There’s no actual recipe for this. We haven’t even made it yet. The boys asked what I did with the honeysuckle I collected when I was little, and I barely remember. And the first bottle they collected sat on a hot table till it turned to vinegar, and not the kind of vinegar you want to imbibe. I told them it was fine: all things, and this gesture more than most, are about the idea rather than the fact, the process rather than the product. But they washed the bottle out and set out to collect more. And on my birthday we’ll add it to vanilla ice-cream. I wonder how that will taste, and I’m looking forward to it.

When you own a store and you sit in it all day, it can feel like waiting for guests who didn’t know they were invited. It just feels like waiting. Of course so do most jobs, even jobs that are enjoyable or valuable. You’re waiting for your next break, or for your lunch, or for your shift to be over. We spend a lot of our lives waiting. Waiting’s not so bad, most of the time. It carries a sense of anticipation, and anticipation carries a sense of hope.

And this summer we discovered the best kind of waiting yet. We hung hummingbird feeders in our backyard, and every morning we would sit and wait for the birds to show up. We’d just sit and watch the plants grow and the garden turn greener and greener and we’d wait for the tomatoes to ripen and we’d wait for the hummingbirds to arrive. And they did. Every single day. Almost to a schedule. A hummingbird is a ridiculous thing. Too sweet, too pretty, too rare. Something nobody can really draw or paint without preciousness, and probably something nobody should try to write about. Seeing one feels like a gift or a blessing, to use an overused but completely apt word. And that’s just when they hover for a moment in your garden. When they land on a tree or a stake in your yard, when you start to recognize one from another, when they take on distinct personalities, when they hover close to your face as if they’re trying to tell you something, when they stay for a while in the glowing green twilight light of your perfect summer garden while you sit and breathe the dusty smoky air and drink the hummingbird-green chartreuse you got for your summer birthday. Well, that’s worth waiting for. That could bring tears to the eyes of a person less steely than myself. Of course the thing about a hummingbird is that she doesn’t announce herself. She’s not preceded by a fanfare, she makes no noise. You have to chance upon her, or you have to be watching. You have to wait with focus. And while you’re waiting, every faintly or fastly fluttering thing will attract your attention, and you’ll realize that they’re all pretty, too. The bugs and bees and bigger blundering birds,  the twisting falling leaves. And no matter how focussed and expectant you were, the hummingbird will always be a heart-bothering surprise, turning up out of nowhere. And even if she’s exactly where you were directing your focussed gaze, the space will feel buzzing new and strange, like a slice of another world.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this waiting and watching, I started wondering about the French word for wait, attender, and I became curious about the connection between waiting and attending. So I searched it up, as the boys would say, and here is my scholarly report. From various old languages, Old French, Old English, Old Latin, we have “To direct one’s mind or energies, to expect, wait for, pay attention.” “To stretch to or stretch towards” “To heed, take care of, protect.” I love them all! To stretch yourself towards the the thing you are hoping for and waiting for! I love that! And I love the sense of expecting, too, it’s one step beyond hoping. And I love the sense of protecting and caring for, which I suppose is from the “waiting-upon-someone” sense of the word; dancing attendance, as the Williams Shakespeare and Yeats might phrase it. But mostly I love the heeding and the directing of energies and the paying attention. I love the idea that we’re not just killing time, waiting, we’re heedful, we’re attentive. We should wait for everything the way we wait for hummingbirds, keenly, and we should notice everything else that happens while we’re waiting with the same keen attention. We should stretch ourselves towards the thing we anticipate and expect, and we should notice every beautiful thing that flies by us as we’re waiting. And then we should stop writing about hummingbirds, because nobody should try to write about hummingbirds.

On a side note: I had a recipe to go with this, but honestly, I haven’t had time to write it all down, it’s not a recipe I feel happy about, and I’m tired of pretending this is a food blog, which it hasn’t been for several years. I’m not saying there will be no more recipes, but there won’t always be recipes.

There will always be songs though! Here’s Bob Marley and the Wailers with I’m Still Waiting.